The Green-Eyed Monster

Coined by Shakespeare. Its most famous appearance is in Othello (c.1603), where Iago warns, "O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on." Shakespeare had already used a related image, "green-eyed jealousy," a few years earlier in The Merchant of Venice (c.1596), suggesting he was developing the metaphor across more than one play before it fully crystallised.