Foreign Word of the Day: Schadenfreude

There are words we need to borrow from other languages.  From German, that word of the day is “Schadenfreude”.  “Schadenfreude” is a compound of “Schaden”, meaning “damage, harm”; and “Freude”, meaning “joy”.  These words are capitalised following the German convention.  When used in English, although we do not capitalise common nouns, some capitalise it following this German convention. 

“Schadenfreude” literally means “harm joy”, or “joy at harm”.  “Schadenfreude” is to experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction at the misfortune of another person, we feel deserves it.  “Schadenfreude” was first mentioned in English texts in 1852, and 1867.  It was first used in English running text in 1895.  In German itself, it was first used in the 1740s. 

“Schadenfreude” does has equivalent terms or words in many other languages, but no commonly-used precise English single-word equivalent.  There are other ways to express the concept in English.  One of those is the word “epicaricacy”.  “Epicaricacy” is derived from Greek “epichairekakia” (ἐπιχαιρεκακία), a compound word, from “epi” (ἐπί) meaning “upon”, “chara” (χαρά) meaning “joy”, and “kakon” (κακόν) meaning “evil”.  “Epichairekakia”, “joy upon evil”, was first coined by Aristotle.