sadomasochistic
Americanadjective
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pertaining to or characterized by interaction, especially sexual activity, in which one person enjoys inflicting physical or mental suffering on another person, who derives pleasure from experiencing pain.
The artist perfectly, but controversially, captured the spirit of the underground, homoerotic, sadomasochistic scenes of the 60s and 70s in New York.
-
deriving gratification by both inflicting and receiving pain.
You can’t win—someone’s always going to call you a sadomasochistic hater of babies for making your baby cry it out.
Etymology
Origin of sadomasochistic
sad- ( sadism ) + -o- + masochistic ( def. )
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Campbell insists that “Grief” is not an act of sadomasochistic indulgence, nor is the act of dramatizing pain anything new.
From New York Times
Mr. Nitsch staged events known as “actions” that drew on pagan and Christian rites with the purpose, he said, of laying “bare the origins of the creation of sadomasochistic myths.”
From Washington Post
As an old man, Bacon might even be said to resemble Proust’s sadomasochistic Baron de Charlus, counting off the dead in a society completely transformed in his lifetime.
From Washington Post
At one point, Rob embarks on a sadomasochistic relationship with a woman; for a safe word, they settle on “creative nonfiction.”
From New York Times
Except as a source of sadomasochistic diversion, the entire agonizing experience will, therefore, prove to be a colossal waste of time and blather.
From Salon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.