firgun

Jan. 5th, 2018 07:41 am
prettygoodword: text: words are sexy (Default)
[personal profile] prettygoodword
Okay, this one isn't yet an English word in the sense of when I see it being used, it's with a sense of it being borrowed, and I'm finding it only in one dictionary (Oxford is passing on it for now), but with any luck it'll soon be there:


firgun (feer-GOON) - n., genuine, unselfish delight in another's accomplishment; a sincere compliment.


The opposite of schadenfreude, another concept we had to adopt to describe with a single word. Firgun is colloquial Hebrew, and given a stink-eye in Israel by some because it was adopted in turn (around the 1970) from Yiddish farginen, meaning wish well/not begrudge/not envy, usually used in the negative form for to begrudge, in turn from German, either the Middle High German equivalents of the High German words vergönnen, meaning acquiescence, or vergnugen, to give pleasure. International Firgun Day is July 17.

---L.

February 2026

S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 5 67
8 9 10 11 12 1314
15161718192021
22232425262728

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Feb. 15th, 2026 01:02 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios