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Is there one? One of my dictionaries lists them as

  • 欲{ほっ}する　→　to desire/to want
  • 欲しがる　→　to desire/to want/to wish for/to covet

Only the latter sounds like it includes more "bad"/selfish desires (covet). However, in this verse in the Bible, they both appear, and both talk about "bad"/selfishly desiring something.

あなたの隣人の妻を欲{ほっ}してはならない。隣人の家、畑、男女の奴隷、牛、ろばなど、隣人のものを一切欲しがってはならない。　―　 申命記 / 5章 21節

So all they really different at all?

Also, as a side question, is 欲する ever read as よくする? I see it listed here, and it comes up in my Android Google Japanese IME, but the dictionary only has an entry for ほっする.

istrasci
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    Isn't 欲しがる for another person's desires? Maybe 欲する is for your own desires. – dotnetN00b Mar 09 '13 at 04:04
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    According to the excerpts from the 日国 entries on the page you linked, よくする means `欲をだす。よくばる。`, which doesn't sound to me like it's quite the same as ほっする, which has one sense meaning `ほしいと思う。得たいと思う。また、望む。願う。ほりす。`. (That's all we can see in the excerpt, but [大辞林](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E6%AC%B2%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B&dtype=0&dname=0ss&stype=0&pagenum=1&index=118129700000) lists a second sense.) It seems that they're different words with different origins. I assume you mean ほっする at the top of your question, but maybe you could add furigana to clarify. –  Mar 09 '13 at 05:48
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    I think 「[欲]{ほっ}す(る)」sounds literary/archaic so we rather say/use「欲しがる」(in modern Japanese?), and「~~(せ)んと欲す」also sounds archaic so we normally say/use 「~~(し)たいと思う」「~~(し)たがる」. –  Mar 09 '13 at 17:49

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I have never heard 欲する spoken in Japan, while you can hear 〜がる every day on TV and in daily life. I would compare it to the currently-used form 感じる and the now-rare 感ずる (cf. 弁ずる、講ずる) which I have again, never heard in speech but have seen in the novels of Soseki and Dazai.

I would be willing to go so far as to say that "covet" is a poor translation of 欲しがる, and should be placed under 欲する for the same reasons.

bright-star
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