sadism

Sadism comes from French sadisme and German Sadismus, both named after the Marquis de Sade, whose libertine writings depicted pleasure taken in inflicting pain on others. The French term sadisme was coined or acknowledged in the 1834 posthumous reprint of Boiste's Dictionnaire universel de la langue française.

The word resurfaced in 1862 when the critic Sainte-Beuve used it (along with 'sadique') writing on Flaubert's Salammbô, then again in 1886 when the psychiatrist Krafft-Ebing used it in Psychopathia Sexualis, which brought it wider attention. Freud's use of it in his 1905 Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality fixed its meaning for good.

The related word 'sadist' (from French sadique) was reused alongside sadisme by Sainte-Beuve in 1862, showing the two terms entered use together.