以別人的痛苦為樂
這一家守住核心畫面裡最關鍵的那一層：快感。差別只在快感是哪一種、講得多嚴謹。
noun · C1
Behaviour in which a person enjoys causing other people pain, fear or shame, and takes pleasure in watching them suffer.
施虐；以他人痛苦為樂
核心畫面
The picture to hold is not the harm itself but the face of the person causing it. Someone has another person in a difficult place and could stop; instead they watch, and something in them likes what it sees. That enjoyment is the whole weight of the word — take it away and you are left with plain cruelty, which English already has a word for. Every use of sadism is that image with the focus moved: onto sexual pleasure, or until only the deliberate cruelty is left.
「sadism」的畫面可以想成：重點不在那個痛苦，而在造成痛苦的那個人的表情。他明明可以停下來，卻站在旁邊看，而且心…更多收起
「sadism」的畫面可以想成：重點不在那個痛苦，而在造成痛苦的那個人的表情。他明明可以停下來，卻站在旁邊看，而且心裡有一點喜歡看到的東西。這一層「喜歡」就是整個字的重量。把它拿掉，剩下的只是殘忍，英文已經有 cruelty 可以用。這個字的每一個用法，都可以想成同一張畫面換了焦點：焦點放在性方面的快感，或者放鬆到只剩下「刻意的殘忍」。From the word’s history
The word was made from the name of the Marquis de Sade, a French writer whose books described the pleasure of causing pain to others. French sadisme is recorded in an 1834 dictionary reprint; the word entered English from French sadisme and German Sadismus.
這個字取名自法國作家 Marquis de Sade，他的作品描寫從造成他人痛苦中得到的快感。法文 sadisme 在 1834 年的辭典再版中被記錄下來，英文則是從法文 sadisme 和德文 Sadismus 借過來的。所以這個字從出生就帶著「快感」那一層，不只是殘忍。
Wiktionary entry for sadism, etymology_text supplied in this packet: From French sadisme and German Sadismus, named after the Marquis de Sade; sadisme coined or acknowledged in the 1834 posthumous reprint of Boiste's Dictionnaire universel de la langue française.
Two branches
放寬成「刻意的殘忍」
核心畫面裡的「喜歡」被鬆開了，只剩下「這個殘忍是刻意的、沒必要的」。字典把它標成廣義用法，嚴謹的寫作仍會守住快感那一層。
noun · C1
Used more loosely: cruelty to people or animals that looks deliberate and pointless, whether or not anyone is actually enjoying it.
（廣義）蓄意的殘忍