Source — Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com), "schadenfreude"
- Title: schadenfreude | Etymology, Origin & Meaning
- Author: Douglas Harper (etymonline's compiler; page unsigned but attributable to the site's standard practice)
- Publication: etymonline.com
- URL: https://www.etymonline.com/word/schadenfreude
- Date: undated (live entry)
- Accessed: 2026-09-01
- Type: tertiary (specialist etymology dictionary) — neutral, historical-linguistic stance.
Extract
- English entry date: 1922 — a third, later date than either Merriam-Webster's 1868 "first known use" or the OED-via-Wikipedia dates (1852/1867 mentions, 1895 running-text use); see Gaps.
- Definition given: "malicious joy in the misfortunes of others."
- Component etymology: Schaden ("damage, harm, injury") traced to Old Norse skaða and Proto-Germanic *skathan-, cognate with English "scathe"; Freude ("joy") from Old High German frewida, from fro ("happy"), literally "hopping for joy," from Proto-Germanic *frawa-, cognate with English "frolic."
- Quotes 19th-century English philologist Richard C. Trench observing that the very existence of the word is evidence the emotion is universal, remarking on how "fearful" it is that any language would need a word for "the pleasure which men feel at the calamities of others" — an early instance of the word itself being treated as proof of something about human nature, a rhetorical move this project's other pages have documented for other "untranslatable" words (national-character mythology in reverse: not "this culture is special" but "human nature is dark").
Gaps
- This is now the third distinct English first-use date on file for this word (etymonline 1922; Merriam-Webster 1868; OED-via-Wikipedia 1852/1867/1895) — a genuine three-way sourcing disagreement, not resolved here. None of the three primary sources (OED itself, etymonline's own citation apparatus, Merriam-Webster's internal citation file) has been directly consulted for its underlying evidence.
- The Trench quotation's original source (title, date) is not given on this page and has not been independently traced.