green with envy?

Question

Where did the phrase "green with envy" originate?What does it mean? Why green?

Answer 1

IDIOM: green with envy

MEANING: quite jealous; jealous of someone else's good fortune

ORIGIN: Green is associated with envy, so jealous suitors used green jade as a potion.

Answer 2

"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 freely used '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.