single word requests - Is there a synonym for "schadenfreude" that sounds more colloquial?


Is there a more colloquial synonym for "schadenfreude"? I'm specifically looking for a noun that denotes a pleasure derived from other people's misfortunes or sufferings. Sadly, I couldn't find any nouns derived from 'to gloat'.


What I have in mind is a plain English word derived from Middle English, Anglo-Norman, Old English, Dutch or Old French. It must be none of the following:



  1. Informal contemporary term (e.g. "lulz")

  2. Loan-word that sounds ostensibly alien (e.g. "schadenfreude", "epicaricacy")

  3. An item of the professional jargon (e.g. some psychological condition)


I'm looking for something plain and simple like 'eviljoy'* (a word that I've just made up).


This word must fit the variable in the sentence "It is common for Jane to feel/experience x ". A word is deemed to fit x on the basis of 'common-sense' linguistic intuition in addition to being a singular noun + the above-stated conditions.


To elaborate on the intuition bit, 'sadism', for instance, is not applicable, neither is gloating. For, if we input the former, then we have "It is common for Jane to feel sadism'. This obviously doesn't sound right, and 'sadistic' would be appropriate, were I not looking for a noun. If the latter is used, then "It is common for Jane to feel gloating" also sounds pretty awkward.



Answer



Since the essential quality of schadenfreude is passive enjoyment from a safe distance of the suffering or misfortune of others, I think that the most apt way to express the idea in English might be with the phrase armchair malice.


The underlying notion of armchair here is similar to its sense in the established U.S. English phrase armchair quarterback, which, according to Dictionary.com, refers to



a person who offers advice or an opinion on something in which they have no expertise or involvement



Armchair malice likewise comes from a position of (relative) ease, away from the fray, and with no sense of responsibility for the debacle that unfolds before one's unsympathetic yet delighted eyes.


As for the word malice itself, a usage note in Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003) makes this point:



MALICE implies a deep-seated often unexplainable desire to see another suffer.



Put armchair and malice together, and you get something roughly equivalent to the cold-blooded, essentially voyeuristic pleasure of schadenfreude.


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