Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage

Date: 1800-1900
Origin: Leopold von Sacher- Masoch (1836-95), Austrian writer who described such sexual behavior

masochism

 noun
     
mas‧o‧chis‧m [uncountable]
1 sexual behaviour in which someone gains pleasure from being hurt or punished [↪ sadism, sado-masochism]
2 behaviour that makes it seem that someone wants to suffer or have problems:
Unconscious masochism seemed to drive her from one disaster to the next.
—masochist noun [countable]
—masochistic adjective:
masochistic behavior
—masochistically adverb
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
 
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