(Latin, avaritia), avarice, cupidity, or covetousness, is the inordinate desire to possess wealth, goods, or objects of abstract value with the intention to keep it for one's self, far beyond the dictates of basic survival and comfort.

It is applied to a markedly high desire for and pursuit of wealth, status, and power. To the deluded mind, these material acquisitions makes them feel excessively moral, social, or otherwise better than others. The avaricious psyche has a diminished sense of self worth, as a result of which there is an urgency to do something, or have something, so that people will think that they are worthy of love, affection, and respect. Notice that the attention of a personality rooted in avariciousness is not within, but without.

In a mind that is infected with avarice, there is a willing desire to compromise virtue due to an extreme attachment to things material. Virtue, morality, and ethics are to be used selectively, and only in cases where it won't harm one's fame, fortune, and prestige. Selfishness, falsehood, deceit, hypocrisy, and theft are common characteristics inherent within the avaricious heart.