I was listening to an app recently, and the person speaking said that they were jealous of something. At the time I thought, “No you aren’t, you are envious.” Which made me think about the differences between jealousy and envy, and why they are so often confused, especially by native English speakers.

Envy

Let’s begin with envy. What is it?

Envy is wanting what someone else has that you don’t have or believe you don’t have. It can be a verb – you can envy someone because of something they have; or as a noun you can have envy. This involves two people, and it can be about absolutely anything.

Examples
verb – I envy him his thick wavy blonde hair.
noun – You can’t control your envy of my fabulous outfit!

The adjective is envious.

Example
They were so envious of our holiday in the Bahamas.

Envy can be a strong emotion but doesn’t have to be as you can see from my examples (which are not very serious!).

Jealousy

What about jealousy?

Jealousy is when you have something that you fear will be taken away by another person. It is only a noun, not a verb.

Jealousy is usually a stronger emotion than envy. With jealousy, more than two people are involved. Jealousy is most often used with romantic relationships, but it can be about some other things.

The adjective is jealous.

You might be jealous of your status or position, and fear that someone else might take it from you. You might be jealous of a parent or your child if they have a close relationship with someone else, like, for example, a stepparent.

But usually, jealousy is about a romantic partner, and the fear of them leaving the relationship for someone else.

Examples
adj – I’m going out with my friends, so stop acting like a jealous husband.
noun – Those people cherish their political freedom with fierce jealousy.
adj – The jealous brothers fought often for their mother’s attention.

If we want to get the adverb involved, you might say that a person behaves jealously.

If you know the Lord of the Rings books and movies, think about the character Gollum. Gollum has a special ring, that he doesn’t want anyone else to have, so he guards it jealously. “It’s my preciousssss”, he says.

Why The Confusion?

Ok, so now we know what they are, but why do people so often mix them up? In recent years there has been a trend in pop culture to use these words as synonyms, like the person I first talked about, who inspired this video and blog post.

But how did it happen? Well, it is possible to be both jealous and envious at the same time.

If you watch the video, I give an example of how someone can be both jealous and envious at the same time!

So, somewhere along the way, people have got the two meanings mixed up and now they just treat them as synonyms. Which really annoys me! Most dictionaries, keeping up with pop culture, use similar definitions for both, and call them synonyms.

Conclusion

My conclusion is that yes, there is a difference between jealousy and envy, but since most people don’t know that there is a difference, I suppose you can use jealousy and envy as synonyms. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it!!!

As always, comments and questions can be left under the video on YouTube.

Until next time!