The words jealousy and envy are consistently confused. But they have a lot in common: Both are really bad news.

You could call envy the fashion emotion. It's material; it's about wanting something you don't have, and feeling unhappy or inferior because you don't have it. It even has a color (green, of course).

Jealousy, the classic gut-wrencher, is about people. It is provoked by loss of love - in sexual jealousy, the most common variety -- or affection and regard. Or at least the fear of that loss.

Shakespeare may call jealousy "the green-ey'd monster," but essayist Lesley Hazleton suggests that the color of jealousy is the red of rage over one's sense of betrayal. In fact, police attribute between 20% and 33% of murders in the U.S. to jealousy over real or suspected infidelity.

Jealousy torments women and men alike -- sort of. The sexes are equally vulnerable, but the experience differs. Sexual straying is the worst relationship crime to 60% of American men, but to only 17% of women. We rank emotional infidelity as the more serious betrayal.

Provoking men's jealousy is a traditional female weapon. But it's playing with fire, because men's need to protect their ego can cause them to impulsively end a relationship if they feel betrayed. Double-standard alert: Jealous women are characterized as pitiful and clinging, while jealous men are suffering righteously -- after all, their territory has been poached on!

Jealousy is powerful (the word is related to "zealous"), brutal, degrading. Self-esteem gets buried in anger and despair. As Lawrence Durrell pointed out, it is not love that is blind, but jealousy.

Envy is easier to control, but it's not pretty either. Envy is petty: the whine of a false sense of entitlement, the delusion that what others have has somehow been taken from you. It's an emotion that's not pleasant to be around because it radiates a lack of self-confidence.

Jealousy is generally spoken of as the more distasteful. But, consulting the list of seven deadly sins, we find Envy. This sounds right, because jealousy is based on love, not property, and thus seems more forgivable.

Unlike the other deadly sins, jealousy and envy have no upside whatsoever. There's neither pleasure nor gain. And keep in mind: Both emotions are aggravated by an insufficiently strong sense of self.

Which do you have more trouble with, envy or jealousy? Do you think it's humanly possible to significantly reduce or eliminate either emotion? Talk about it in the forum.

Write to Elizabeth Cleary

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