Word of the Day for Monday August 22, 2005 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, [1]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, [2]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, [3]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," [4]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. References 1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0140291989/ref=nosim/lexico 2. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0802138489/ref=nosim/lexico 3. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0312263570/ref=nosim/lexico 4. http://www.nytimes.com/ Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=9&q=schadenfreude