schadenfreude
noun
Lisa Respers France
Did you know?
Ever a popular lookup on our site, schadenfreude refers to the joy you might feel at another person’s pain. It’s a compound of the German nouns Schaden, meaning “damage,” and Freude, meaning “joy.” Schadenfreude was a favored subject in Germany by the time it was introduced to English in the mid-1800s; discussed by the likes of Schopenhauer, Kant, and Nietzsche, schadenfreude was showing up in psychology books, literature for children, and critical theory. In English, the word was used mostly by academics until the early 1990s, when it was introduced to more general audiences via pop culture. In a 1991 episode of The Simpsons, for example, Lisa explains schadenfreude to Homer, who is gloating at his neighbor’s failure; she also tells him that the opposite of schadenfreude is sour grapes. “Boy,” he marvels, “those Germans have a word for everything.”
Examples of schadenfreude in a Sentence
Max Tani, semafor.com, 3 Nov. 2025
And, actually, this is quite a big thing, even without the schadenfreude of domestic rivals’ slip-ups or the fact that much of United’s match was, football-wise, very unspectacular.
—Megan Feringa, New York Times, 9 Oct. 2025
Yessiree, that’s a five-star schadenfreude feast.
—Blake Toppmeyer, USA TODAY, 9 Oct. 2025
The kerfuffle within Your Party has spawned endless jokes, memes, and obvious schadenfreude among its rivals.
—Arash Azizi, The Atlantic, 4 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for schadenfreude
Cite this Entry
“Schadenfreude.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/schadenfreude. Accessed 6 Nov. 2025.
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