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Ideogrammic compound (會意/会意) : 羊(“sheep”) + 㳄(“saliva”) – to envy.
羊 may be interpreted as a beautiful sheep or good mutton (cf. 美 “beautiful” and 善 “good”).
The Kangxi Dictionary, following 《佩觿》, enters the word in etymology 2 as 羡, separating it from 羨 (etymology 1). This is also followed by dictionaries such as Hanyu Da Cidian and Dai Kan-Wa Jiten, but Zhongwen Da Cidian disagrees with this treatment. (Hanyu Da Zidian regards 羡 as the main form of all pronunciations.) According to 《說文解字羣經正字》:
羨, meaning "to covet", is now frequently written as 羡 in the classics. Guo Zhongshu's Peixi distinguishes 羨 and 羡 as separate characters. 羡, fanqie 以脂, name of a place in Jiangxia. 羨, fanqie 似面, to desire. This is not the case. There's no such character with the 次 element in character dictionaries. There is only one character but several pronunciations.
Etymology 1
Possibly related to 餘 (OC *la, “surplus”) (Wang, 1982).
If you do not have an intercommunication of the productions of labour, and an interchange of men's services, so that one from his overplus may supply the deficiency of another, then husbandmen will have a superfluity of grain, and women will have a superfluity of cloth.