Epicaricacy

Every now and then you come across a word and as much for the definition of the word you get a little bit of feeling for the word itself, or at least I do...

Epi•ca•ri•ca•cy [ɛpɪˈkærɪkəsi] n The willful derivation of pleasure upon witnessing the downfall of others: He was a lord indulging in epicaricacy as he watched others at court fall about before being dismissed in disgrace by the King. [The Deadian Initiates]

-ORIGIN From Ancient Greek ἐπί (epí, “upon”) + χαρά (khará, “joy”) + κακός (kakós, “evil”) Though the word is featured in several early English dictionaries, very few citations are available and references in obscure word books and websites now far exceeds the number of citations available.

-ANTONYMS None registered. The word epicaricacy is on record as having petitioned for an antonym to be introduced for itself so that it may have some way of expressing it’s contrived misery at the runaway success of it’s synonymous German cousin, Schadenfreude.

So next time you hear someone say Schadenfreude spare a thought for it's poor underappreciated antonymless cousin, epicaricacy