The act of wishing harm, bad luck, or misfortune upon someone else.
Compound of 'evil' and 'wishing,' from Old English roots. The term appears in medieval moral literature describing the mental sin of desiring another's suffering, even without speaking it.
This word captures something psychologists now call 'schadenfreude'—finding pleasure in others' misfortune—but medieval moralists considered it sinful even as a private thought, showing how language tracked invisible moral struggles.
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