Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The deriving of sexual gratification or the tendency to derive sexual gratification from inflicting pain or emotional abuse on others.
- noun The deriving of pleasure, or the tendency to derive pleasure, from cruelty.
- noun Extreme cruelty.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A form of sexual perversion marked by extreme cruelty.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun the enjoyment of inflicting pain without pity
- noun achievement of
sexual gratification byinflicting pain on others - noun gaining sexual excitement and satisfaction by watching pain inflicted by others on their
victims - noun a
morbid form of enjoyment achieved by actingcruelly to another, or others - noun Deliberate cruelty, either mental or physical; also refers to cruelty inflicted upon animals, regardless of gratification
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun sexual pleasure obtained by inflicting harm (physical or psychological) on others
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word sadism.
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?
-
That overlooks or minimizes the element in sadism (and in all sin) of self-love in preference to other goods, including the Supreme Good.
-
But let's not talk as if sadism is about seeking God and just coming up short.
-
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 2005
-
I guess you’d have to be from Louisiana to understand this, but that sadism is brewing again.
Archive 2008-08-01 2008
-
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?"
-
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?"
-
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."
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.