Last night I watched the last 20 minutes of the national spelling bee finals. I heard a lot of new words, but most importantly, I got a new word I really liked and and will be using a lot. This is the 19th round, which the second place girl spelled wrong.
The word: welt·schmerz
Pronunciation: ‘velt-”shmerts
Function: noun
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: German, from Welt world + Schmerz pain
1 : mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state
2 : a mood of sentimental sadness
- Mood:
amused
1 response so far ↓
Weltschmerz and schadenfreude are my two favorite German words to use in real life. (Well, aside from Sheise, which has its own special place in my vocabulary while driving…)
It is perhaps unfortunately indicative of my personality that I tend to use ’schadenfreude’ more than ‘weltschmerz’.