Envy, Green With

“GREEN WITH ENVY”

Would like to know the origin of the phrase,

: "green with envy"

"Why do we turn green with envy? Judith S. Neaman and Carole G. Silver report that 'green' and 'pale' were alternate meanings of the same Greek word. In the seventh century B.C., the poetess Sappho, used the word 'green' to describe the complexion of a stricken lover. The Greeks believed that jealousy was accompanied by an overproduction of bile, lending a pallid green cast to the victim.

Ovid, Chaucer, and Shakespeare followed suit, freely using 'green' to denote jealousy or envy. Perhaps the most famous such reference is Iago's speech in Act 3 of Othello:

O! beware my lord, of Jealousy;

It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock

The meat it feeds on.