schadenfreude.
Malicious enjoyment derived from observing someone else's misfortune; counterempathy.
Meaning & usage
Malicious enjoyment derived from observing someone else's misfortune; counterempathy.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *skaþô Proto-West Germanic *skaþō Old High German skado Middle High German schade German Schaden Proto-Indo-European *prew-der. Proto-Germanic *frawazder. Proto-Germanic *frawiþō Old High German frewida Middle High German vröude German Freude German Schadenfreudeubor. English schadenfreude An unadapted borrowing from German Schadenfreude (“joy in the misfortune of others”), from Schaden (“damage, misfortune”) + Freude (“joy”). The word gained popularity in English in the late 20th c. and likely entered mainstream usage through an episode of The Simpsons (more in citations).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.