Ten Kinds of Happiness

A cozy quality that makes a person feel content and comfortable

Hygge is so closely associated with Denmark that the official website of the country has an entire section titled What do we mean by "hygge"? (They describe it as “about taking time away from the daily rush to be together with people you care about—or even by yourself—to relax and enjoy life's quieter pleasures.”) The word may be applied to many things: clothes (soft and comfortable), activities (relaxed and with friends and family), food (comforting), and settings (warm and cozy). Hygge is increasingly used in English too. But while some advertisers have found hygge a helpful concept for selling things, the word is more about a feeling of well-being than about buying a pair of fuzzy socks.

The things that give zest and joy to life

Ikigai covers a wide range of pleasures that spark passion or bring value to one’s life. This might include time spent with family and friends, or a hobby (such as gardening), or an artistic pursuit (such as painting or performing music). The origins of the word are apt: ikigai comes from “life” (iki) and “value, benefit” (-gai). The word has a cousin in a phrase English borrowed from French, raison d'être, “reason or justification for existence.”

Rising early in order to go listen to birds singing outside

Gökotta literally means “early cuckoo morning” and refers to the practice of going outside around dawn to hear birds sing. Almost any bird will do: they don’t actually have to be cuckoo birds. Traditionally, gökotta is practiced by Swedes between Ascension day (40 days after Easter) and the middle of summer, but you can do it at any time of the year. While English has no equivalent, we do enjoy dawn chorus, “the singing of wild birds that closely precedes and follows sunrise.”

Enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others

Originally a German concept, schadenfreude has proved so useful to English speakers that we’ve gleefully adopted it. It combines the German words for damage (Schaden) and joy (Freude) to efficiently describe how you feel when something bad happens to someone you dislike. English does have words that overlap a bit with schadenfreude, such as gloating, but this usually refers to a public display, while schadenfreude can be a sour little pleasure you keep to yourself. The concept of schadenfreude is not restricted to German; a number of other languages have synonyms. Dutch has leedvermaak, French has joie maligne, Finnish has vahingonilo, and Mandarin has xìng zāi lè huò, suggesting that taking pleasure in another’s misfortune may be a universal emotion.

Happiness in another’s success; unselfish joy on behalf of someone else

A nearly perfect opposite of schadenfreude, firgun can apply to the generous feeling you might experience on numerous occasions: a coworker’s promotion, the success of someone who you don’t know (or don’t like), a former lover getting married. Borrowed into Hebrew from Yiddish, firgun has been described as an “antidote to envy.”

Satisfaction and enjoyment derived from a good job or work.

Uniting words for work (arbejde) and joy (glæde), arbejdsglæde achieves a job-seeker’s ideal: delight in the work itself. One English approximation might be job satisfaction, but this somewhat clunky combination doesn’t quite capture what the Danish word does. Arbejdsglæde is also related to English concepts like engagement, vocation (in the sense of a calling), and flow state (a concept that psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined to describe immersion and concentration at work). However, arbejdsglæde reflects a particularly Nordic emphasis on quality of life, and the belief that work should be a source of well-being rather than just a means to an end.

Musically induced ecstasy

English has words that mean “pleasing to the ear”—such as euphonious and mellisonant—but we don’t have one quite like tarab, which describes an ecstatic sort of intoxication from a live musical performance. If you’ve ever been to a concert so powerful it had you transfixed, you may have experienced tarab.

Joy in the home

Ayodele combines ayo (joy) with de (come) and ile (home), to express something similar to an English phrase like “a home filled with happiness.” In both cases, joy is a kind of tangible presence. When English speakers say someone “brings joy” they're using the same concept found in Yoruban ayodele: positive emotions can occupy and transform a physical space.

The feeling of solitude and peacefulness when alone in a forest.

In German, wald means “forest” and einsamkeit means “loneliness,” but waldeinsamkeit evokes a kind of happiness—a comforting and serene feeling, with perhaps a touch of melancholy. An archaic word, waldeinsamkeit has gained popularity since Covid, as more Germans head to the woods in pursuit of a transcendent experience.

Although it hasn’t been adopted into English, Waldeinsamkeit was the title of an 1858 poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson about experiencing nature, and the last stanza provides a lovely illustration of the word’s meaning.

Oblivion here thy wisdom is,
Thy thrift, the sleep of cares;
For a proud idleness like this
Crowns all thy mean affairs.

Those enjoying waldeinsamkeit might also consider this delightful and archaic English word: psithurism, “a whispering sound, as of wind among leaves.”