Jealous for envious

My current tooth grinder is "property". Listening to Radio 4 (Moneybox, I think) people phoning in with queries about fuel charges etc, and they all seemed to live in a "property", not a house, flat bungalow, cottage, castle or hovel, but a "property"

I think ffinnochio has put it neatly.

Isn't envy one of the seven deadly sins?!

guilty of using (and being) jealous.

I think it is the parents that a jealous child is holding on tightly to, guarding their posession of them against a sibling who seems to be taking way their love.

I should maybe have said that jealousy is about someone or something that you might lose, envy about someone or something that someone else has.

Yes ffinnochio nicely said!

I've always thought that to be envious was a soft and gentle way of expressing a wish to experience or to have something someone else has; a kindly expression to someone you like.

To exhibit jealousy, I've thought, is a strong and bitter expression of wanting what others have, and an active dislike of the person who has the object of desire.

Interesting question, something I've often wondered about.
Looking up the words in the dictionary, jealous is related to zealous, feeling very strongly about someone's possession of something that you want. But to me it also has the feeling of resentment and wanting to take the thing for yourself, why should they have it and not me, a negative feeling.
Envy is similar, still used a lot in french (from which it's derived) meaning a craving, a strong desire to own something because it's good. Without the negative connotations of jealousy.
If jealousy is used more on twitter etc I'm not surprised - there seems to be a trend to demean other people, emphasise their negative points.

I've noticed my American DiL uses jealous when I would probably use envious, and often when she doesn't really mean it.
For example, if I put a photo on Facebook of me on a tropical beach, she'll put something like 'Jealous!!' followed by j/k which means joking. She certainly doesn't mean that she's eaten up with kept-awake-at-night-type jealousy.

I think your definition's neat Elegran, but not sure I agree with it....for example, a sibling could be jealous because they thought another sibling was treated by the parents more favourably, but in that situation they aren't fearful of something being taken away, they are upset because they perceive someone has something they have never had.

I would suggest a more clinical take on it.
To me, feelings of envy come within the normal spectrum of emotions, whereas jealousy can develop into something pathological.

I agree with Aqui...for me envious is a feeling more than an active verb.

Ana that's terrible

A big cheesy to AKA & ANA .

It must be cursed, Atqui...

As you probably noticed I too have trouble with capital I and can't always get the curser in the right place to change it

Atqui ce ne fait rien Nonu

Off to Cubs shortly. Have fun being pedantic.

The example that made me post the OP was, now i think about it, on Facebook, not Twitter, as it happens. A friend of mine posted on FB that he'd been to a concert by some band or other and one of his friends commented that she was "so jealous". I thought: she means she's envious.

But as atqui says, the meanings will morph and jealous will come to mean envious because that's how most people use it.

Then i start wondering how long it will take before only pedants use 'envious' when they mean envious.

Has disinterested lost the battle yet? Pretty much, I reckon. It's a shame to lose words, but i suppose we are making them up too.

Sorry about the small i. The way my iPad capitals work has changed and I haven't quite got the finger timing right yet. Fed up of correcting though.

not sure being envious means you want to take something away from anyone, just that you' d like it yourself; whereas if you are jealous you are afraid someone else is replacing you in another person's affections.I think !

Ooops, Envious Nashville NOT Memphis , silly old me !

I CAN do puns with the best of them Bags when the mood strikes , trouble is it does not strike that often !

Anyway all"s well that ends well . heyho !

Aka, not important but I didn't understand it either!!!

I got lost somewhere there too. Still am.

As it is pedants' corner can I test this as a defintion of jealous v envious?

You are jealous of what you have and fear someone may take away from you.
You are envious of what someone else has and would like to take it away from them.

No doubt the two words will be allowed to be synonymous in the same way that 'literally' is now included in the dictionary in its current popular usage by the (mainly) young ,apparently ,e.g. I literally died!

Again, I've left out a step... your OP ... Jealousy v Envy?

It just proves that we have very different thought processes Bags. I tend to make quantum leaps whereas you worship at the altar of logic. My comment was, to me, 'logical' as the little green emoticon is 'envy'. But don't let it fash you it's not really important.

So, aka, there is no underlying meaning or dig at anyone in the OP. Any 'dig' is simple pedantry at a certain diction in common use. Puzzlement rather than a dig really, as why use a word that has a meaning otherthan envious when envious is more straightforward? [thinking out loud]