- the getting of sexual pleasure from dominating, mistreating, or hurting one's sexual partner
- the getting of pleasure from inflicting physical or psychological pain on another or others
Origin of sadism
Fr, after the Marquis de SadeEnjoying the act of causing pain on your lover for sexual gratification is an example of sadism.
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Origin of sadism
Fr, after the Marquis de Sade
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noun
Origin of sadism
AfterComteDonatien Alphonse François de SadeRelated Forms:
noun
adjective
adverb
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(countable and uncountable, plural sadisms)
Named after the Marquis de Sade, famed for his libertine writings depicting the pleasure of inflicting pain to others. The word for "sadism" (sadisme) was coined or acknowledged in the 1834 posthumous reprint of French lexicographer Boiste's Dictionnaire universel de la langue française; it is reused along with "sadist" (sadique) in 1862 by French critic Sainte-Beuve in his commentary of Flaubert's novel Salammbô; it is reused (possibly independently) in 1886 by Austrian psychiatrist Krafft-Ebing in Psychopathia Sexualis which popularized it; it is directly reused in 1905 by Freud in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality which definitely established the word.
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n.
Related Forms:
n.
adj.
adv.
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