epicaricacy
noun; uncountable

- Rejoicing at or deriving pleasure from the misfortunes of others.

- Taking joy in another person’s bad fortune.

- The experience of pleasure at another’s suffering or setback.

Wiktionary, Dictionary of Early English, Definitions.net

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WORD ORIGIN

"Epicaricacy" comes from the Ancient Greek epichairekakia: epi, “upon”; chairein, “to rejoice”; and kakon, “evil” or “misfortune”. Aristotle used the Greek term when discussing human character.

In 1621, Robert Burton included the original Greek word in 'The Anatomy of Melancholy', describing it as a mixture of joy and hatred felt when others suffer. Nathan Bailey’s early eighteenth-century dictionary later gave the anglicised spelling epicharikaky and defined it as joy at others’ misfortunes.

The modern form epicaricacy remained remarkably obscure. Joseph T. Shipley revived it in his Dictionary of Early English, but evidence of ordinary English use is scant. Meanwhile, the German Schadenfreude—literally “harm-joy”—became the familiar English borrowing. English therefore has its own word for the feeling; it simply prefers the German one.

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WHEN RIVALS FALL

A banana skin isn’t equally funny under every foot. If a kind stranger slips on it, we wince. If an arrogant bully does, we may struggle not to smile.

That difference points to one of epicaricacy’s strongest ingredients: perceived justice. Psychological studies have repeatedly found that people feel greater pleasure when they believe the unfortunate person deserved what happened or was responsible for it. Sympathy moves in the opposite direction.

Status also matters. Researchers studying reactions to social groups found that participants responded less negatively when misfortune struck people presented as successful and competitive. Facial-muscle measurements even detected more smiling. The reaction wasn’t merely something people admitted on a questionnaire; it appeared briefly on their faces.

This helps explain the enduring appeal of fictional comeuppance. From pompous officials in comedy to boastful villains in children’s stories, characters are often made objectionable before disaster arrives. The audience is quietly given permission to enjoy the fall.

But the pleasure can reveal as much about the observer as the victim. Other experiments found that threats to a person’s self-esteem intensified schadenfreude—even when envy, dislike and deservingness were taken into account.

Epicaricacy is sweetest when another person’s fall makes our own position feel safer.

Helga & Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS

EPICARICACY, gloating, malicious joy, schadenfreude

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“I confess to a flicker of EPICARICACY when the office know-all forgot his own password.”

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