schadenfreude

Dictionary.com/Word of the Day: schadenfreude

A malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others.

The historian Peter Gay -- who felt Schadenfreude as a Jewish child in Nazi-era Berlin, watching the Germans lose coveted gold medals in the 1936 Olympics -- has said that it "can be one of the great joys of life."
--Edward Rothstein, "Missing the Fun of a Minor Sin." New York Times, February 5, 2000

Often the people Pi met in Mendocino wanted to hear these terrible stories, the personal disasters, or they quoted them back to her from what they'd read, with a certain glitter in their eyes -- giving Pi the chance to wonder again as she once had in a Wittgenstein seminar why there wasn't a word in English for Schadenfreude, that very human pleasure taken in other people's misery.
--Sylvia Brownrigg, The Metaphysical Touch

Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

[German : Schaden, damage (from Middle High German schade, from Old High German scado) + Freude, joy (from Middle High German vreude, from Old High German frewida, from frō, happy).]

Schadenfruede is referenced in the series Boston Legal episode entitled Schadenfruede to explain why defendents are convicted of an unrelated criminal offense after having been engaged in culturally unacceptable or possibly illegal activities.