sadism means the enjoyment of inflicting pain or humiliation without pity.
sadism is pronounced /ˈseɪdɪzəm/.
Why “sadism” is a great word
The deriving of pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from inflicting pain, suffering, or humiliation upon others. From French sadisme, named after the Marquis de Sade (1740–1814), famed for his libertine writings depicting such pleasures; the term was coined in French by 1834 (in Boiste's dictionary) and popularized in medical literature by Krafft-Ebing in 1886. Unlike "cruelty," which may be indifferent or instrumental, or "masochism," which seeks pleasure in receiving pain, sadism is defined by the perpetrator’s active, gratifying enactment of another’s degradation. It is the deliberate, savoring turn of a screw, the cold evaluation of a flinch, and the precise calibration of a humiliation to its sweetest, most bitter point—a dark testament that the human capacity for empathy can be not just absent, but actively, pleasurably inverted.
Etymology
From French sadisme and German Sadismus. Named after the Marquis de Sade, famed for his libertine writings depicting the pleasure of inflicting pain to others. The word for "sadism" (sadisme) was coined or acknowledged in the 1834 posthumous reprint of French lexicographer Boiste's Dictionnaire universel de la langue française; it is reused along with "sadist" (sadique) in 1862 by French critic Sainte-Beuve in his commentary of Flaubert's novel Salammbô; it is reused (possibly independently) in 1886 by Austrian psychiatrist Krafft-Ebing in Psychopathia Sexualis which popularized it; it is directly reused in 1905 by Freud in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality which definitively established the word.
noun
- The enjoyment of inflicting pain or humiliation without pity.
- Achievement of sexual gratification by inflicting pain or humiliation on others, or watching pain or humiliation inflicted on others.
- Deliberate or wanton cruelty, either mental or physical, to other people, or to animals, regardless of whether for (sexual) gratification.
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- masochism 93% match — The (often sexual) enjoyment of receiving pain or humiliation. vs sadism →
- zoosadist 87% match — One who derives sexual pleasure from cruelty to animals. vs sadism →
- zoosadism 87% match — The deriving of sexual pleasure from cruelty to animals. vs sadism →
- algolagnia 87% match — A physical condition that causes a person to gain sexual pleasure by suffering pain, particularly to erogenous zones. vs sadism →
- schadenfreude 85% match — Malicious enjoyment derived from observing someone else's misfortune. vs sadism →
- voyeur 84% match — A person who derives sexual pleasure from observing other people engaging in some intimate or sexual activity; one who engages in voyeurism. vs sadism →
- bloodlust 82% match — A desire for bloodshed and carnage, often aroused in the heat of battle and leading to uncontrolled slaughter and torture. vs sadism →
- dominatrix 82% match — A dominating woman; a female dominator. vs sadism →