A noun. From German Schadenfreude, from Schaden (“damage, harm”) + Freude (“joy”)
Malicious enjoyment derived from observing someone else's misfortune.
Source: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schadenfreude
Schadenfreude pronounced 'sharden-froid-eh'. I first learned this word from reading Will Ferguson's hilarious book Happiness. It comes to mind again when I think of the now former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. There is no English version of Schadenfreude, so you can go around saying it to your heart's content and not be accused of sounding pretentious (or German).
Hi, I don't know whether you will read this but I have an idea for a story and I think your profile would make a marvellous basis for a character, however you would be living in a small village in England, not in Canada :)
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