hathos

Meaning

Noun

• Enjoyment derived from hatred of a person or thing.

Origin

• . According to journalist Alex Heard, this word was coined in 1985 when he was searching for a word to describe the "cringe-y feeling you get when celebs go AWOL" and attended a Super Bowl party where he and another guest, then-Bob Dole press aide Scott Richardson, exchanged ideas until they came up with "hathos." The word's first apparent use in print was in an essay by Heard, published in The Washington Post on May 17, 1987.