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Comment by donjoe | Hacker News Reader

Yes, that's exactly how you would use it in German. The word itself actually consists of 'Schaden' (damage/harm) and 'Freude' (joy/pleasure/happiness). In case someone gets 'damaged', you'd feel joy and experience 'Schadenfreude'.

If your car-addicted neighbor annoying the whole neighborhood with his 400 HP engine would run over his own cat, you'd experience 'Schadenfreude'. You'd still feel sorry for the cat though ;)

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In German, is it also used in a darker sense, as the counterpoint to envy? For example, an acquaintance goes on what would be your dream vacation, but is plagued by illness.

I hope this article is not a sign that we are losing the word in English to people who want to affect erudition, as we don't have a good native substitute (and that is not because English speakers do not have such emotions!)

Without having more details, I generally wouldn't say one would feel Schadenfreude in your example.

Now, if your acquaintance is obnoxious or is putting everyone down for not being able to afford their dream vacations, then yes, Schadenfreude would apply.

In more general terms, you don't feel Schadenfreude whenever something bad happens to someone. There has to be a sense of "Well, that guy had it coming".

Yeah, right - you somehow need that 'haha, look at you'/'that serves you right' moment to call it 'Schadenfreude'.

Maybe, but none of the ~dozen definitions that I have found have this 'they had it coming' qualification. This, may, however, be the way the meaning is going in English.

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-most-American-dictionaries-prov...

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