jouissance

J8O1U1I1S1S1A1N1C3E1

noun

Enjoyment, delight, pleasure.

OriginMiddle French jouissance →
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Meanings

nounjouissance (countable and uncountable, plural jouissances)

plural jouissances

  1. countableobsoleteuncountableEnjoyment, delight, pleasure.

    friendship is enjoyed according as it is desired, it is neither bred, nor nourished, nor increaseth but in jovissance, as being spirituall, and the minde being refined by use and custome.

    1603, Michel de Montaigne, translated by John Florio, The Essayes […], London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
  2. countableuncountableA transgressive, excessive kind of pleasure linked to the division and splitting of the subject involved.

    Instead Lyotard suggests that the worker experiences jouissance, a masochistic pleasure, in the imposed ‘mad destruction’ of their body.

    2013, Benjamin Noys, Malign Velocities: Accelerationism and Capitalism, Zero Books, →ISBN

Origin

  1. Middle Frenchjouissance
  2. Englishjouissance

From Middle French jouissance, from jouir (“to enjoy”).

More words from Middle French

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

jouissance. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/jouissance

MLA

“jouissance.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/jouissance. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “jouissance,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/jouissance.

Source: jouissance on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.