Anhedonia

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˌan.hɪˈdəʊ.nɪə/

Definitions

1. A mental health condition defined by the inability to derive pleasure from previously enjoyable activities or experiences, which results in a profound lack of emotional fulfillment
2. A condition in which a person cannot find pleasure in previously enjoyable activities, resulting in emotional emptiness and a marked decline in happiness levels
3. A psychological state where someone is unable to feel enjoyment from activities that once gave them happiness

Etymology: Anhedonia was coined in French by the psychologist Théodule-Armand Ribot in 1896, when he needed a precise term for the inability to feel pleasure. He built it from the Greek prefix "an-", meaning "without" or "not", attached to "hēdonē", meaning "pleasure". The Greek word itself has a longer and more cheerful pedigree: it gave English "hedonism" and "hedonist", names for philosophies that treat pleasure as the highest good. The construction is what makes the word so neat. Greek speakers used "an-" in many words to mean the absence of something, so "anhedonia" reads as "the state of being without pleasure", exactly the sense Ribot intended. The English form arrived by way of the French, so the word carries a clinical flavour from its first use, when it was a technical label in psychology rather than an everyday word.