Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The deriving of sexual gratification or the tendency to derive sexual gratification from inflicting pain or emotional abuse on others.
- n. The deriving of pleasure, or the tendency to derive pleasure, from cruelty.
- n. Extreme cruelty.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A form of sexual perversion marked by extreme cruelty.
Wiktionary
- n. the enjoyment of inflicting pain without pity
- n. achievement of sexual gratification by inflicting pain on others
- n. gaining sexual excitement and satisfaction by watching pain inflicted by others on their victims
- n. a morbid form of enjoyment achieved by acting cruelly to another, or others
- n. Deliberate cruelty, either mental or physical; also refers to cruelty inflicted upon animals, regardless of gratification
WordNet 3.0
- n. sexual pleasure obtained by inflicting harm (physical or psychological) on others
Etymologies
- Named after the Marquis de Sade, famed for his libertine writings depicting the pleasure of inflicting pain to others. The word for "sadism" (sadisme) is forged 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 definitely established the word. (Wiktionary)
- After Comte Donatien Alphonse François de Sade. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“That the existance of illegal acts of sadism is just as horrifying as mass sadism openly practiced and touted as a virtue by the highest officials in the government?”
“But let's not talk as if sadism is about seeking God and just coming up short.”
“That overlooks or minimizes the element in sadism (and in all sin) of self-love in preference to other goods, including the Supreme Good.”
“As for the teacher's motives in accepting to enter into these displacements of identity, they are even more suspect than those of the younger person, to the precise extent that sadism is morally and socially more suspect than masochism.”
Professing Literature: John Guillory's Misreading of Paul de Man
“I guess you’d have to be from Louisiana to understand this, but that sadism is brewing again.”
“Famous for giving his name to the perversion known as sadism, the Marquis de Sade was initially a doctor, who originated the phrase, "Does it hurt when I do this?”
The Huffington Post: Mark C. Miller: First Jobs of History's Greatest
“When those first photos from Abu Ghraib were broadcast around the world five years ago, we told ourselves the sadism was the work of just a few maniacs.”
“The show, as Gordon tells Mayer, consists largely of "improvisations in sadism.”
“All too easy to blame a faceless deity, never seen by anyone living, for the sadistic drives in human nature, and call the sadism righteousness.”
“And then you have to think of sadism, which is tremendous excitement at inflicting acts of cruelty on other innocent parties.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘sadism’.
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-ism's -logies
acosmism, absurdism, absolutism, ableism, aestheticism, alarmism, allotheism, anachronism, animalculism, analogism, animatism, animism and 464 more...
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SAT Master Vocab List
Words I have come across that I don't know the meaning of!
rumination, contrition, extemporize, effusion, exult, vexed, sumptuous, punitive, brethren, harridan, macabre, acrid and 123 more...
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Favorites
machiavellian, mercurial, deus ex machina, synecdoche, litotes, phallic, freudian, metonymy, chrestomathy, falsifiable, gestalt, truthiness and 211 more...
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My Revised GRE Preparation List
Words from the new GRE : This list consists mostly of words from the book Magoosh-GRE-vocab-ebook, which is one of the best vocab materials available, especially if you have started preparing one ...
alacrity, prosaic, veracity, paucity, contrite, trite, maintain, laconic, pugnacious, disparate, egregious, innocuous and 533 more...
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sexual feelings
words describing the sexual parts of life
snog, shag, copulate, intercourse, paraphilia, carnal, fetish, fornicate, abstinence, foreplay, coitus, chastity and 119 more...
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Units Of Language
Word:
-a unit of language consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning.sulk, promenade, skulk, idle, subsequently, moody, paroxysm, felony, anent, generic, hallucinogen, synaesthesia and 215 more...
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wordsmithing part deux
because wordsmith is not a verb.
enmity, incarnate, chignon, nape, solitude, nocturne, decorum, warren, svelte, interstice, serene, charlotte and 488 more...
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The Moral Landscape
Vocab. from "The Moral Landscape" by Sam Harris
discrepant, supine, zeal, juxtaposition, hobble, concession, pious, consilience, profusion, primacy, conducive, piecemeal and 87 more...
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Words to Use
Good for vocab! The seemingly common words are actually referring to lesser-known definitions.
depravity, lampoonery, copacetic, ferrule, feat, saddle, scroop, auteur, demiurge, paunch, peripatetic, demur and 104 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate, amalgam and 1781 more...
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lucidityprevails's Words
lucidity, journalistic, truthiness, foolhardy, egotism, lesbian, orgasmic, activism, moonglow, voodoo, conquer, demolish and 534 more...
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bianxie's list
cruel, asphyxiate, merciless, mercy, masochism, sadism, osculate, loquacious, vehement, pinnacle, rough, macabre and 77 more...
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Russo Vocab Test
ostracize, innumerable, chiffonier, qualm, compulsory, sadism, masochism, falsetto, liberate, rile, pacifist, unscrupulous and 56 more...
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alsanch1's list
Macabre
sedition, cadaver, exsanguination, haemorrhage, grisly, victim precipitat..., cloistered, viscera, scaphism, eviscerate, chthonian, abacinate and 23 more...
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Sex
Words pertaining to sex.
homoerotic, autoerotic, sadism, masochism, sadomasochism, lesbian, gay, queer, orgasmic, orgasm, fornicate, fornication and 16 more...
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List of ISMs
theism, monotheism, premillennialism, postmillennialism, millennialism, calvinism, arminianism, skepticism, reductionism, mysticism, pantheism, rationalism and 48 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for sadism.
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