The seven deadly sins: the full list and what each one means

The list of the seven deadly sins

The standard Western list, in the form Pope Gregory the Great gave it in AD 590, with the Latin names the medieval Church used:

Sin	Latin	What it means	Opposite virtue
Pride	Superbia	Putting yourself above everyone and everything else; treated as the root of the other six	Humility
Greed	Avaritia	Wanting more possessions or money than you need, and hoarding them	Charity
Lust	Luxuria	Desire that has stopped caring about the other person	Chastity
Envy	Invidia	Resenting someone for what they have: status, looks, luck, success	Kindness
Gluttony	Gula	Eating and drinking past the point of need or enjoyment	Temperance
Wrath	Ira	Anger that wants to hurt, punish or get even	Patience
Sloth	Acedia	Not plain laziness: a listless indifference to what you know you should be doing	Diligence

The virtues column is the traditional pairing that grew up after Gregory's list became standard. It is not the same thing as the "theological" and "cardinal" virtues (faith, hope, love, prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance), which are a separate list.

Where the list comes from

A common surprise: the seven deadly sins are not listed anywhere in the Bible. The passage people sometimes point to is Proverbs 6:16–19, which names seven things God hates, but those are different items (a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood and so on). The familiar seven grew out of early monastic writing.

Evagrius and the eight thoughts (4th century)

Evagrius Ponticus, a monk living in the Egyptian desert, wrote about eight "evil thoughts" (logismoi) that distract a monk from prayer: gluttony, fornication, greed, sadness, anger, acedia, vainglory and pride. He was writing a practical guide for other monks, not a list of crimes. The idea was to notice which thought was pulling at you so you could deal with it.

Cassian carries it West

John Cassian brought the scheme to the Latin-speaking Church, translating the eight into Latin: gula, luxuria, avaritia, tristitia, ira, acedia, vanagloria and superbia.

Gregory the Great makes it seven (AD 590)

Pope Gregory I thought some items overlapped. He folded vainglory into pride and sadness into acedia, added envy, and set pride apart as the root from which the others grow. That is essentially the list most people know today.

Aquinas, Dante and everyone after

In the 13th century Thomas Aquinas defended Gregory's list in the Summa Theologica, calling them "capital" sins because other sins grow out of them. Dante built the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory around the same vices, and from there the sins moved into sermons, paintings, morality plays and, much later, films like Se7en.

Why are they called "deadly"?

In Catholic teaching the more precise term is "capital sins". The Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 1866) lists them as pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony and sloth or acedia, and explains that they are called capital because they "engender other sins, other vices". In other words, they are less a list of the worst acts and more a map of the habits that lead to bad acts.

"Deadly" comes from the separate idea of mortal sin, which in Catholic theology is a grave sin committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent. Popular usage blended the two, which is why "seven deadly sins" stuck even though a moment of envy is not, by itself, considered mortal.

Seven or eight? The Eastern Orthodox version

Eastern Christianity kept the older eight-part scheme from Evagrius and Cassian. In Orthodox spiritual writing they are usually called the eight passions: gluttony, fornication, love of money, anger, sorrow, despondency, vainglory and pride. Envy is not a separate item, and sorrow and despondency stay apart. If you see a list of eight rather than seven, that is why.

Sloth is the most misunderstood one

Modern readers often translate acedia as laziness, but the monks meant something closer to restless apathy: a heavy, bored indifference that makes you avoid the very thing you care about. A person who works 70 hours a week to avoid thinking about their life can, by this definition, be slothful. That is one reason the sin still resonates: it describes procrastination and doomscrolling better than "laziness" does.

What the sins look like in an ordinary week

You do not have to be religious to find the list useful. Read as a catalog of very human failure modes, the seven map onto everyday behavior surprisingly well:

• Pride: refusing to admit you were wrong in a meeting, or arguing in comments to win rather than to understand.
• Greed: the extra subscription, the third pair of the same sneakers, checking your portfolio ten times a day.
• Lust: treating people as content to scroll past rather than as people.
• Envy: the small sting when a friend posts their promotion or holiday.
• Gluttony: the second dessert you did not even want, or finishing the whole bag because it was open.
• Wrath: the angry message in traffic or in a group chat that you regret by evening.
• Sloth: the task you have been "about to start" for three weeks.

Seen this way, the list works less as a verdict and more as a set of labels for patterns you can notice. Which is roughly how Evagrius meant it for his monks: name the thought, and it loses some of its grip.

Which sin is the worst?

Traditionally, pride. Gregory called it the root of all evil and the beginning of every sin, and most lists, Western and Eastern, single it out as the most serious. The reasoning is that pride is what makes you refuse to see the other six in yourself.

Keeping track, with a sense of humor

If the list made you recognize a few of your own habits, you are in very large company. Our app Sin Tracker turns the seven into a calendar: you tap a day, log which of the seven you committed, and get a sarcastic one-liner back instead of a motivational quote. It is satire about self-improvement apps rather than a religious tool, but watching which sin keeps showing up on your calendar is, oddly, a decent way to notice your own patterns.