In the latest World Wide Words, Michael Quinlon had this to say about a sacred subject:

"Epicaricacy

Occasionally, I come across a word that’s so rare and mysterious that it’s a struggle to find out anything about it.

This one turned up in an article in the Observer on 10 August by Lauren Laverne, who was looking for a word “for the mistaken belief that there is no English equivalent for a non-English word”. She noted Schadenfreude as an example of such a word, the pleasure that one derives from another person’s misfortune, which is from German Schade, harm and Freude, joy. She said an English equivalent does exist — epicaricacy. It does?

I tracked it down in Insulting English, by Peter Novobatzky and Ammon Shea, dated 2001. They say that it’s from Greek epi, upon, plus chara, joy, and kakon, evil. Fair enough, though why a borrowing from Greek should be more English than one from German is unclear. They also say it has “appeared in many old and esteemed dictionaries”. I can’t find a single one. Wiktionary says that it’s recorded in two works compiled by Nathan Bailey — the Universal Etymological English Dictionary of 1721 and the Dictionarium Britannicum of 1730 — but I can’t find it in either.

So far as I can discover, the earliest known recognition of epicaricacy is in Joseph Shipley’s Dictionary of Early English of 1955. I’ve found it in just two places — in the Times in May 2008 and in one novel:

Schadenfreude I know it is called. Or epicaricacy, as the English will have it. From the original Greek.
Retromancer, by Robert Rankin, 2009.

We must conclude it’s not a fine old English word, but an erudite modern coining known to hardly anybody and of limited interest. Novobatzky and Shea may have attracted enough attention to it that in time it might find a place in the language. Just don’t hold your breath waiting.

Although my memory may be farty, I'm pretty sure Kalleh found it in the copy of Bailey's she let slip through her fingers at Powell's Books. Or maybe it was in THIS Bailey's: http://www.baileystaproom.com/

I am going to write Quinion. It is in Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary because I saw it. Powell's in Portland had a copy of the 1770 edition, and clearly the word was there. I am surprised at Quinion. Usually he is more thorough.

If he considers it another loanword, are most of our words loanwords then? Many come from different languages, as we all know.

Here it is in the 1763 online Bailey's. It's on page 308. Ammon Shea was right on the spelling in that dictionary: epicharikaky. On the other hand, many of the words back then were spelled differently.

I did write Quinion and will let you know if he answers. My experience is that he usually does. Here is a link to my recent Blog post about all of this.

I sent it to Quinion, and he answered me very quickly. About "epicaricacy" being in Bailey's he said: "I'm glad to have that sorted out. I was surprised not to be able to find it!"

Then, when I said that I am surprised that people don't accept "epicaricacy" as many words that are loan words (such as "schadenfreude") or antiquated and rarely used are in the OED, he said: "My comment was intended to say, but perhaps too obliquely, that a word
from Greek was as valid as one from German." I can't say that I got that from his comment, but oh well. What he actually is saying then is that "epicaricacy" is a valid a word as "schadenfreude" is. Now we must convince the OED of that!

In this week's WWW newsletter:

"Epicaricacy. Nancy Spector of the Wordcraft website pointed out that I was wrong to say the word epicaricacy doesn’t appear in any of Nathan Bailey’s dictionaries. It is included in An Universal Etymological English Dictionary of 1721 but in the spelling epicharikaky. Ammon Shea, whom I doubted in my piece, tells me it’s also in John Ash’s New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language of 1775 and in A Dictionary of the Synonymous Words and Technical Terms in the English Language by James Leslie of 1806, both in the same spelling as in Bailey’s. The word appears several times in various works in the original Greek spelling; a writer on the Wordcraft site found it a century before Bailey in Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy of 1621. It was familiar to Burton and other Greek scholars because Aristotle had used it."

Thanks, Proof, for alerting me. We may have awakened the interest in my favorite word! Plus, I had my 5 minutes of fame.

On the other hand, I am wondering why he doesn't make a correction on his web site. The original entry is still there, which is wrong because he wrote that epicaricacy was not in Bailey's.

He has changed it slightly:

quote:

It’s recorded in several old works, including Nathan Bailey’s An Universal Etymological English Dictionary of 1721, though in the spelling epicharikaky. It is recorded even earlier in the original Greek spelling in Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy of 1621. It was familiar to him and to other Greek scholars because Aristotle used it.

The page is here.

Oh good!

Look what just came into my Google Alerts - an epicaricacy antonym.

[I am not sure I get it.]

Suddenly my Google alerts are increasing - I think it's because of Quinion. Here's the latest.