| Definitions | | sadism |
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noun (uncountable)
- (mainly psychiatric) the enjoyment of inflicting pain
- achievement of sexual gratification by inflicting pain on others
- gaining sexual excitement and satisfaction by watching pain inflicted by others on their victims
- a morbid form of enjoyment achieved by acting cruel to another, or others.
- (In general use) deliberate cruelty either mental or physical also applicable to the cruelty inflicted upon animals whether for sexual gratification or not.
Translations: Etymology: Named after the w:Marquis de Sade, 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 w:Pierre-Claude-Victor Boiste, Boiste's Dictionnaire universel de la langue franíaise; it is reused along with "sadist" (sadique) in 1862 by French critic w:Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Sainte-Beuve in his commentary of Flaubert's novel Salammbí; it is reused (possibly independently) in 1886 by Austrian psychiatrist w:Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing, Krafft-Ebing in Psychopathia Sexualis which popularized it; it is directly reused in 1905 by Freud in w:Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality which definitely established the word.
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