evil desire; wicked lust
A somewhat literary or formal term for morally wrong or sinful desires, often with a connotation of lust or greed.
Driven by evil desire, he committed a crime.
In that story, wicked desires lead people to ruin.
Standard kanji form using 欲 (desire).
Variant using 慾, an older form of 欲; rarely used in modern Japanese.
Compound of 邪 (ja, 'wicked, evil') and 欲 (yoku, 'desire'). The exact historical derivation is uncertain, but the word follows a common Sino-Japanese pattern for abstract concepts.