Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 23, 2025 is: de rigueur • \duh-ree-GUR\  • adjective De rigueur is a formal adjective that describes things that are necessary if you want to be fashionable, popular, socially acceptable, etc.—in other words, things required by fashion, etiquette, or custom. // Dark sunglasses are de rigueur these days among fashionistas. See the entry > Examples: “Summer swimwear has come a long way since itty-bitty string bikinis were de rigueur for the beach and by the pool.” — Amanda Randone, Refinery29.com, 31 May 2024 Did you know? It takes a lot of work to be cool. One needs to wear the right clothes, understand the right pop culture references, and use the right lingo before it ceases to be, ahem, on fleek. Rigor is required, is what we’re saying—a strict precision in adhering to the dictates of fashion. Such rigor is at the crux of the adjective de rigueur, a direct borrowing from French where it means “out of strictness” or “according to strict etiquette.” Rigor is also what distinguishes de rigueur from a similar French borrowing, du jour. While the latter describes things that are popular, fashionable, or prominent at a particular time, as in “topic/style/buzzword du jour,” de rigueur describes that which is considered mandatory by fashion, etiquette, or custom for acceptability within a given social sphere or context. A bucket hat, for example, may be the chapeau du jour if it is currently popular or prevalent, but it would only be de rigueur if, among a certain crowd, you would be given the side-eye for not wearing one.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 22, 2025 is: neologism • \nee-AH-luh-jiz-um\  • noun Neologism can refer either to a new word or expression or to a new meaning of an existing word. // I love seeing all the slangy neologisms that pop up on social media every year. See the entry > Examples: "… [U]ndertakers refashioned themselves … as funeral directors over the span of a few decades in the early twentieth century. … [T]he new generation of morticians (another neologism meant to conjure expertise) bought up shambling Victorian mansions in swish residential districts and invented a new form of comfort." — Dan Piepenbring, Harper's, 2 Feb. 2024 Did you know? The English language is constantly picking up neologisms. In recent decades, for example, social media has added a number of new terms to the language. Finsta, rizz, influencer, meme, and doomscroll are just a few examples of modern-day neologisms that have been integrated into American English. The word neologism was itself a brand-new coinage in the latter half of the 18th century, when English speakers borrowed the French term néologisme, meaning both "the habit of forming new words" and "a newly formed word." The French term, which comes from néologie, meaning "coining of new words," comprises familiar elements: we recognize our own neo-, with various meanings relating to what is new, as in neoclassical, and -logy, meaning "oral or written expression," as in trilogy.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 21, 2025 is: permeate • \PER-mee-ayt\  • verb To permeate is to pass or spread through something. // The scent of lilacs permeated the room. // A feeling of anxiety permeated the office as everyone rushed to meet the deadline. See the entry > Examples: "The smell of sawdust permeates the air, and the din of buzzing chainsaws echoes from crews working to clear debris." — Chris Boyette, CNN, 3 Oct. 2024 Did you know? Permeate was borrowed into English in the 17th century from Latin permeatus, which comes from the prefix per- ("through") and the verb meare, meaning "to go" or "to pass." Meare hasn't exactly permeated English. Aside from permeate itself, its other English descendants include the relatively common permeable as well as the medical meatus ("a natural body passage") and the downright rare irremeable ("offering no possibility of return").

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 20, 2025 is: vernal • \VER-nul\  • adjective Vernal is a formal adjective that describes something that relates to or occurs in the spring. // It is such a relief after a long, cold winter to see the trees and flowers in their glorious vernal bloom. See the entry > Examples: “I visited the wetland as best I could, given my professional obligations and peripatetic lifestyle, which often nurtured anything but stillness. Still, I baked and sweated in the summer sun, drew a thick down jacket around me on cold and snowy winter days, huddled in vernal rain, lounged in fall light.” — Christopher Norment, Terrain.org, 18 Sept. 2024 Did you know? “The sun’s coming soon. / A future, then, of warmth and runoff, / and old faces surprised to see us. / A cache of love, I’d call it, / opened up, vernal, refreshed.” These are the closing lines of the poem “Runoff” by Sidney Burris, and even if you don’t (yet) know the word vernal, you can probably divine its meaning from context. The sun’s arrival? Melting snow and ice? Optimism? It all sure sounds like spring, the muse of many a poet and the essence of vernal, an adjective that describes all things related to the season. While the sun has been crossing the equator since time immemorial, producing a vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere in late March and in the southern hemisphere in late September, the word vernal has only been in use in English since the early 16th century, when it blossomed from the Latin adjective vernālis. That word in turn traces back to the noun vēr, meaning “spring.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 19, 2025 is: juggernaut • \JUG-er-nawt\  • noun A juggernaut is something (such as a force, campaign, or movement) that is extremely large and powerful and cannot be stopped. // The team is a juggernaut this year, winning more games than any team before it has. See the entry > Examples: "[Judd] Apatow talked about the box office success of 'Wicked,' the Universal musical that became a juggernaut over the holiday season and has been an awards darling ..." — Cynthia Littleton, Variety, 8 Feb. 2025 Did you know? In the early 14th century, Franciscan missionary Friar Odoric brought to Europe the story of an enormous carriage that carried an image of the Hindu god Vishnu (whose title was Jagannāth, literally, "lord of the world") through the streets of India in religious processions. Odoric reported that some worshippers deliberately allowed themselves to be crushed beneath the vehicle's wheels as a sacrifice to Vishnu. That story was likely an exaggeration or misinterpretation of actual events, but it spread throughout Europe. The tale caught the imagination of English listeners, and they began using juggernaut to refer to any massive vehicle (such as a steam locomotive) and to any other enormous entity with powerful crushing capabilities. While the word is still used sometimes in British English to refer to a very large, heavy truck (also called a "juggernaut lorry"), juggernaut is more commonly used figuratively for a relentless force, entity, campaign, or movement, as in "a political/economic/cultural juggernaut."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 18, 2025 is: admonish • \ad-MAH-nish\  • verb To admonish someone is to express warning or disapproval towards them, or to urge them to do something. // We were admonished for arriving late to the meeting. // They were admonished to take advantage of the opportunity. See the entry > Examples: "My parents admonished me and my siblings to stay away from the windows." — Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker, 16 Mar. 2023 Did you know? We won't admonish you if you don't know the origins of admonish. This word, along with its archaic synonym monish, likely traces back to the Latin verb monēre, meaning "to bring to the notice of," "to remind," and "to warn." Among monēre's other English descendants are monitor, premonition, monument, and (gulp) monster. Admonishing someone (for, say, being late) hardly risks being labeled a monster, however. While a word like rebuke suggests sternness and severity, admonish usually suggests friendly, gentle, or earnest criticizing done in the spirit of counselling and instructing.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 17, 2025 is: limerick • \LIM-uh-rik\  • noun A limerick is a humorous rhyming poem of five lines. // My limerick received a prize for the funniest poem at the open mic night. See the entry > Examples: "… the play is silly, purposefully stupid and tough for even [Cole] Escola to categorize: 'If I were to call it a farce or a screwball comedy, I feel like actual scholars of comedy would be like, "There's not a single door slam, you idiot!" I would call it … a dirty limerick,' they joked to Variety earlier this fall." — Rebecca Rubin, Variety, 25 Nov. 2024 Did you know? A limerick is a short, humorous (and frequently bawdy) five-line poem with a rhyme scheme of aabba. While the origins of this type of verse are unknown, some believe that the poem owes its name to a group of poets from Limerick, a port city in west-central Ireland, who wrote such verses. Others point to a parlor game in which players sang the chorus of an old soldiers' song with the phrase "will you come up to Limerick?" and then added impromptu verses. Regardless, a limerick’s characteristic rhythm comes from its uses of anapests, metrical feet consisting of two short syllables followed by one long syllable or two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable (as in "unaware"). To wit: "There once was a song from old Éire / Sung by the soldiers living there, / 'Will You Come Up to Limerick?' / Quite possibly did the trick / In naming the limericks we share."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 16, 2025 is: rife • \RYFE\  • adjective Rife usually describes things that are very common and often—though not always—bad or unpleasant. Rife is also commonly used in the phrase “rife with” to mean “copiously supplied” or “having a large amount of; full of.” Unlike most adjectives, rife is not used before a noun. // Speculation about who would be sent to the new office had been rife for weeks. // The writer's history was rife with scandal. See the entry > Examples: “At a time when TV viewers have infinitely more choices than they have ever had, networks and streaming platforms need to find ways to stand out and to make those viewers feel special. So their overriding goal is to make fans feel as if they’re being brought inside the shows they like. DVD features were once rife with this kind of thing, from behind-the-scenes footage to commentary tracks and blooper reels, all of which made their way straight to YouTube.” — Don Aucoin, The Boston Globe, 2 Jan. 2025 Did you know? English is rife with words that have been handed down to us from Old English—among them, rife. It comes from the Old English adjective rȳfe and first appeared in written form in the 12th century. Its oldest meaning, still in use today, is synonymous with widespread and prevalent; it's more likely, however, than either of those to describe negative things, as in “corruption and greed were rife in City Hall.” Most often, rife is used alongside with to mean “abounding.” Although rife can be appropriately used for good or neutral things in this sense (and all senses), as in the first sentence of this paragraph, like its synonym and fellow Old English descendant lousy (from the Old English noun lūs, meaning “louse”), it tends to describe things one wishes weren’t in such copious supply.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 15, 2025 is: stratagem • \STRAT-uh-jum\  • noun A stratagem is a trick or plan for deceiving an enemy or for achieving a goal. // They devised various stratagems to get the cat into the carrier, but the feisty feline was wise to them all. See the entry > Examples: "In one illustration of the mashup of sacred and superstitious, [author Tabitha] Stanmore describes a 'trial by combat' ... to win Sherborne Castle. The devious bishop sewed 'prayers and charms' inside his fighter's coat to give him an edge. The stratagem was discovered, but the cunning cleric won the castle and kept his miter." — Liesl Schillinger, The New York Times, 7 July 2024 Did you know? A stratagem is any clever scheme—sometimes one that's part of an overall strategy (i.e., a carefully prepared plan of action). The word stratagem entered English in the 15th century and was originally used in reference to some artifice, such as a military plan or maneuver, that was designed to deceive or outwit the enemy. This military sense can be traced back to the word's Greek ancestor stratēgein, meaning "to act as a general." Stratēgein, in turn, comes from stratēgos (meaning "general"), which comes from stratos ("camp" or "army") and agein ("to lead"). Stratēgos is an ancestor of strategy as well; that word arrived in English more than a century after stratagem.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 14, 2025 is: bamboozle • \bam-BOO-zul\  • verb To bamboozle someone is to deceive, trick, or confuse them. // The salesperson bamboozled us into getting a more expensive item than we had planned to buy. See the entry > Examples: "'We're not trying to make a perfect film that's, like, got a twist: Oh my God, the coach is a ghost! We're not out to bamboozle audiences or get awards or anything,' [Taika] Waititi told Polygon. The director continued, 'We want to make a nice movie, a true story about a football team, and the only message is, "Be happy and don’t live in the past."'" — Monica Mercuri, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2024 Did you know? In 1710, Irish author Jonathan Swift wrote an article on "the continual Corruption of our English Tongue" in which he complained of "the Choice of certain Words invented by some pretty Fellows." (Note that pretty originally meant "artful, clever.") Among the inventions Swift disliked was bamboozle, which was used by contemporary criminals. Beyond those who favored the word, little is known of its early days, but the word has clearly defied Swift's assertion that "All new affected Modes of Speech ... are the first perishing Parts in any Language." With its first syllable like a sound effect, bamboozle hints at mystification or magic when it is used to mean "to confuse, frustrate, or perplex," as in "The batters were bamboozled by the pitcher's dazzling curveball."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 13, 2025 is: curfew • \KER-fyoo\  • noun Curfew refers to a law or order that requires people to be indoors after a certain time at night, as well as to the period of time when such an order or law is in effect. Chiefly in the United States, curfew is also used to refer to the time set by a parent or caregiver at which a child has to be back home after going out. // No one is allowed on the streets during the curfew. // Lana has a 10 o’clock curfew, so we need to bring her home right after the movie. See the entry > Examples: “[Lew] Alcindor narrowed his college choice to Michigan, Columbia, St. John’s, and UCLA. He liked Columbia as the chance to attend school walking distance to Harlem and a subway ride to the jazz clubs he had to leave early as a high schooler to make curfew.” — Scott Howard-Cooper, Kingdom on Fire: Kareem, Wooden, Walton, and the Turbulent Days of the UCLA Basketball Dynasty, 2024 Did you know? Curfews set by parents (and kept or broken by their offspring) do not echo the origins of the word curfew in any discernable way—if they did, they’d need to at least hint at the sound of a bell. When curfew was first used in the 14th century, it referred to the sounding of a bell at evening to alert people that they should cover their hearth fires for the night—a necessary warning, as many European houses in the Middle Ages were close enough to each other that fires could spread easily from one to the next. The word came to English from Anglo-French, in which the signal was called coverfeu, a compound of covrir, meaning “to cover,” and feu, “fire.” Even when hearth fires were no longer regulated, many towns had other rules that called for ringing an evening bell, including one that required people to be off the streets by a given time, a development that granted curfew permission to go out and about with a broader meaning.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 12, 2025 is: multifarious • \mul-tuh-FAIR-ee-us\  • adjective Something described as multifarious has great diversity or variety, or is made up of many and various kinds of things. Multifarious is a formal word and a synonym of diverse. // He participated in multifarious activities throughout college. See the entry > Examples: "Over the course of his multifarious career, [musician Pat] Metheny has led numerous bands, more than a few of whose members later became band leaders in their own right." — George Varga, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 Oct. 2023 Did you know? Before the late 16th-century appearance of multifarious, English speakers used another word similar in form and meaning: multifary, meaning "in many ways," appeared—and disappeared—in the 15th century. Before either of the English words existed, there was the Medieval Latin word multifarius, from the Latin adverb multifariam, meaning "in many places." Multi-, as you may know, means "many," and is used to form, well, multifarious English words, from multicultural to multimillion. The word omnifarious ("of all varieties, forms, or kinds"), a relative of multifarious, is created with omni- ("all") rather than multi-.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 11, 2025 is: quark • \KWORK\  • noun Quark is a word used in physics to refer to any one of several types of very small particles that make up matter. // Quarks, which combine together to form protons and neutrons, come in six types, or flavors: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom. See the entry > Examples: “One quantum field is special because its default value can change. Called the Higgs field, it controls the mass of many fundamental particles, like electrons and quarks. Unlike every other quantum field physicists have discovered, the Higgs field has a default value above zero. Dialing the Higgs field value up or down would increase or decrease the mass of electrons and other particles. If the setting of the Higgs field were zero, those particles would be massless.” — Matt Von Hippel, Wired, 19 Aug. 2024 Did you know? If you were a physics major, chances are that James Joyce didn’t make it onto your syllabus. While literature majors are likely more familiar with his work, Joyce has a surprising tie to physics. In the early 1960s, American physicist Murray Gell-Man came up with the word quork, which he used to refer to his concept of an elementary particle smaller than a proton or neutron (by his own account he was in the habit of using names like “squeak” and “squork” for peculiar objects). He later settled on the spelling quark after reading a line from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: “Three quarks for Muster Mark! / Sure he has not got much of a bark / And sure any he has it’s all beside the mark.” The name stuck and has been used by physicists ever since.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 10, 2025 is: imperturbable • \im-per-TER-buh-bul\  • adjective Imperturbable describes someone or something marked by extreme calm; such a person or thing is very hard to disturb or upset. // The imperturbable captain did not panic when the boat sailed into the path of a violent storm. // Nothing disrupted the contestant's imperturbable focus. See the entry > Examples: "The thick heat is not letting up after a long stretch of nearly-90-degree-days, though the crowd has not seemed to notice. Instead, these thousands of people emanate a truly imperturbable energy as they get to see gospel legend Mavis Staples for free." — David Cohn, The Daily Californian (UC Berkeley), 13 Oct. 2024 Did you know? Imperturbable is a bit of a mouthful, but don’t let its five syllables perturb you. Instead, let us break it down: this word, as well as its antonym perturbable, comes from the Latin verb perturbare, meaning "to agitate, trouble, or throw into confusion." Perturbare comes in turn from the combination of per-, meaning "thoroughly," and turbare, meaning "to disturb"; unsurprisingly perturbare is also the source of the English verb perturb. Other perturbare descendants include disturb ("to destroy the tranquility or composure of") and turbid ("thick or opaque with or as if with roiled sediment").

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 9, 2025 is: wend • \WEND\  • verb Wend is a literary word that means “to move slowly from one place to another usually by a winding or indirect course”; wending is traveling or proceeding on one’s way in such a manner. // Hikers wend along the marked trails to the top of the mountain, which provides a panoramic view of the area towns. // We wended our way through the narrow streets of the city’s historic quarter. See the entry > Examples: “Otters do not like to share food.... There is a flickering movement of jaws before they swallow and dive again. For a moment I think they have left, then they surface once more and I make out two long shapes, one just ahead of the other. They wend their way further down the waterway before insinuating themselves back into the dark.” — Miriam Darlington, Otter Country: In Search of the Wild Otter, 2024 Did you know? “Out through the fields and woods / And over the walls I have wended …” So wrote poet Robert Frost in “Reluctance,” using the word’s familiar sense of “to direct one’s course.” By the time of the poem’s publication in 1913, many other senses of wend had wended their way into and out of popular English usage including “to change direction,” “to change someone’s mind,” “to transform into something else,” and “to turn (a ship’s head) in tacking.” All of that turning is linked to the word’s Old English ancestor, wendan, which shares roots with the Old English verb, windan, meaning “to twist” (windan is also the ancestor of the English verb wind as in “the river winds through the valley”). Wend is also to thank for lending the English verb go its past tense form went (as a past tense form of wend, went has long since been superseded by wended).

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 8, 2025 is: gregarious • \grih-GAIR-ee-us\  • adjective Gregarious is used to describe someone who enjoys the company of other people. // Justin’s gregarious personality made it easy for him to get to know people at the networking event. See the entry > Examples: “How can we reap the benefits of deep connection if we are not naturally gregarious and extroverted? But as I have delved into the evidence, I have discovered that our social skills are like our muscles—the more we use them, the stronger they become. Even self-declared introverts can learn to be more sociable, if they wish.” — David Robson, BBC, 23 July 2024 Did you know? Everyone knows that birds of a feather flock together, so it comes as no surprise that gregarious was applied mainly to animals when it first began appearing in English texts in the 17th century. After all, gregarious comes from the Latin noun grex, meaning “flock” or “herd,” and it’s tough to avoid being social when you’re part of a flock, flying and roosting cheek by jowl (or beak) with your fellow feathered friends. Take starlings, for example, which congregate in massive numbers—we define the word starling as “any of a family of usually dark gregarious birds,” meaning that starlings are inclined to associate with others of their kind. By the 18th century gregarious was being used to describe social human beings as well, be they chatty Cathys or convivial Connors who relish being in the company of others.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 7, 2025 is: emollient • \ih-MAHL-yunt\  • noun An emollient is something, such as a lotion, that softens or soothes. // She keeps a number of oils in the bathroom—argan, almond, and coconut—to use as emollients. See the entry > Examples: "Jojoba oil and squalene are plant oils and emollients, which means they moisturize and soften skin by reinforcing its natural barrier and forming a layer that prevents moisture from escaping; beef tallow is considered an emollient, too." — Katie Mogg, The New York Times, 18 July 2024 Did you know? The noun emollient is used most often in reference to a substance—such as an oil, cream, lotion, butter, or balm—used to treat someone's skin or hair. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it traces back to a Latin word, the verb emollire, meaning "to soften or soothe." Emollire, in turn, formed in part from the adjective mollis, meaning "soft." (Another descendant of mollis is mollify, which means "to make softer in temper or disposition.") Emollient first appeared in print in English in the early 1600s as an adjective with the meaning "making soft or supple," describing things such as herbs, medicines, and poultices; the noun arrived on the scene soon after.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 6, 2025 is: career • \kuh-REER\  • verb To career is to go at top speed especially in a headlong manner. // The tourists gripped their seats and exchanged anxious looks as the bus careered along the narrow roads. See the entry > Examples: “This winter, I attended a livestock auction on California’s remote northern coast. Ranchers sat on plywood bleachers warming their hands as the auctioneer mumble-chanted and handlers flushed cows into a viewing paddock one by one. Most of the cows were hale animals, careering in and cantering out.” — Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic, 12 Apr. 2024 Did you know? If you’re already familiar with career’s equestrian history, surely you joust. The noun career dates to the early 16th century, when it referred to the speed of something moving along a particular course. To go “in full career” or “at full career” was to hurtle, barrel, blaze, or zip, a meaning employed by Sir Walter Scott in a jousting scene in his historical romance Ivanhoe: “The trumpets sounded, and the knights charged each other in full career.” The verb career thus originally conveyed the action of a horse or rider making a short gallop or charge, as when the very aptly named John Speed wrote in his 1611 Historie of Great Britain “his horse of a fierce courage carrierd [=careered] as he went.” Career later gained additional senses applied to the movement of horses, such as “to prance or caracole” (“to turn to one side and another in running”), as well as one—“to rush forward quickly and recklessly”—that can be applied to anything or anyone feeling their oats, velocity-wise. Note that careen can also be used with that last meaning, but it originally meant something else.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 5, 2025 is: askew • \uh-SKYOO\  • adjective Askew means “not straight” or “at an angle,” and can be used as both an adjective and an adverb. // The picture on the cabin wall was slightly askew. // The picture was hung askew on the cabin wall. See the entry > Examples: “I reread ‘Biography of Nigeria’s Foremost Professor of Statistics, Prof. James Nwoye Adichie,’ by Emeritus Professor Alex Animalu, Professor Peter I. Uche, and Jeff Unaegbu, published in 2013, three years before my father was made professor emeritus of the University of Nigeria. The printing is uneven, the pages slightly askew, but I feel a euphoric rush of gratitude to the authors. Why does this line—‘the children and I adore him’—from my mother’s tribute soothe me so; why does it feel pacifying and prophetic? It pleases me that it exists, forever declared in print.” — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The New Yorker, 10 Sept. 2020 Did you know? If you watch enough nature documentaries you may notice that gazelles are able to escape the claws (and, subsequently, jaws) of cheetahs when they zigzag across the savannah rather than simply run in a straight line. In Middle English, prey outmaneuvering a predator in this way might be said to be “skewing.” Skew means both “to take an oblique course” (as it does in modern English too) as well as “to escape,” and comes from the Anglo-French word eschiver, meaning “to escape or avoid.” It’s this skew, with its suggestion of crooked lines, that forms the basis of the adjective askew (the prefix a- means “in [such] a state or condition”). Askew is used as both an adjective and an adverb to describe things or actions that are a little off, not straight, or at an angle. The “escape” sense of the Middle English skew isn’t so much implied by askew, but we suppose that a painting hanging askew on one’s wall could be, metaphorically speaking, attempting to escape from the rest of the décor.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 4, 2025 is: schadenfreude • \SHAH-dun-froy-duh\  • noun Schadenfreude refers to a feeling of enjoyment that comes from seeing or hearing about the troubles of other people. // Schadenfreude was felt by many viewers when the arrogant contestant was voted off the show. See the entry > Examples: “In 1995, Sox fans were overjoyed to see the Yankees get knocked out of the playoffs in a thrilling divisional series.... It was Boston schadenfreude, to be sure ...” — Chris Young, The Sun Chronicle (Attleboro, Massachusetts), 13 Sep. 2024 Did you know? Ever a popular lookup on our site, schadenfreude refers to the joy you might feel at another person’s pain. It’s a compound of the German nouns Schaden, meaning “damage,” and Freude, meaning “joy.” Schadenfreude was a favored subject in Germany by the time it was introduced to English in the mid-1800s; discussed by the likes of Schopenhauer, Kant, and Nietzsche, schadenfreude was showing up in psychology books, literature for children, and critical theory. In English, the word was used mostly by academics until the early 1990s, when it was introduced to more general audiences via pop culture. In a 1991 episode of The Simpsons, for example, Lisa explains schadenfreude to Homer, who is gloating at his neighbor’s failure; she also tells him that the opposite of schadenfreude is sour grapes. “Boy,” he marvels, “those Germans have a word for everything.”