Dictionary.com

Word of the Day Archive
Wednesday September 4, 2002

schadenfreude \SHOD-n-froy-duh\, noun:
A malicious satisfaction obtained from the misfortunes of others.

That the report of Sebastian Imhof's grave illness might also have been tinged with Schadenfreude appears not to have crossed Lucas's mind.
-- Steven Ozment, Flesh and Spirit

He died three years after me -- cancer too -- and at that time I was still naive enough to imagine that what the afterlife chiefly provided were unrivalled opportunities for unbeatable gloating, unbelievable schadenfreude.
-- Will Self, How The Dead Live

Somewhere out there, Pi supposed, some UC Berkeley grad students must be shivering with a little Schadenfreude of their own about what had happened to her.
-- Sylvia Brownrigg, The Metaphysical Touch

The historian Peter Gay -- who felt Schadenfreude as a Jewish child in Nazi-era Berlin, watching the Germans lose coveted gold medals in the 1936 Olympics -- has said that it "can be one of the great joys of life."
-- Edward Rothstein, "Missing the Fun of a Minor Sin", New York Times, February 5, 2000

Schadenfreude comes from the German, from Schaden, "damage" + Freude, "joy." It is often capitalized, as it is in German.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for schadenfreude

 

Share This:  Share This: del.icio.usShare This: digg.comShare This: FacebookShare This: furl.netShare This: www.netscape.comShare This: myweb2.search.yahoo.comShare This: www.stumbleupon.comShare This: www.google.comShare This: www.technorati.comShare This: blinklist.comShare This: newsvine.comShare This: ma.gnolia.comShare This: reddit.comShare This: favorites.live.comShare This: tailrank.com