English

Noun

jouissance ‎(uncountable)

1. (obsolete) Enjoyment, delight, pleasure.

Usage notes

• The sexual connotation (i.e. orgasm) is lacking in the English word "enjoyment", and therefore the word is left untranslated in English editions of the works of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.

  1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, Folio Society 2006, vol. 1 p. 184:

  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.

French

Etymology

From jouir.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʒwisɑ̃s/

Noun

jouissance f ‎(plural jouissances)

1. (law) use, possession, enjoyment
2. enjoyment, deep pleasure
3. sexual pleasure, sensual delight; orgasm, climax
   • 1785, Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, Les 120 journées de Sodome, ou l'École du libertinage

     Il est taillé comme une femme et en a tous les goûts; privé par la petitesse de sa consistance de leur donner du plaisir, il l'a imité, et se fait foutre à tout instant du jour. Il aime assez la jouissance de la bouche; c'est la seule qui puisse lui donner des plaisirs comme agent.

     He is built like a woman and has all their tastes; limited by the smallness of his ability to give them pleasure, he has imitated them, and gets fucked at any time of day. He quite enjoys pleasuring by the mouth; it is the only way he is able to give pleasure as the active agent.

Middle French

Noun

jouissance f (plural jouissances)

1. Alternative form of iouyssance