voyeur
Meaning
A person who gains sexual pleasure from watching others when they are naked or engaged in sexual activity.
A person who enjoys seeing the pain or distress of others.
Structure
Usage
The film is shot from the perspective of a voyeur peering through a window.
Some reality TV shows appeal to the voyeur in all of us.
He was accused of being a voyeur, secretly filming his tenants.
Etymology
The word voyeur is a direct borrowing from French, entering English in the early 20th century. It is formed from the French verb voir (to see), with its stem voy-, combined with the agent suffix -eur. This construction literally means "one who sees". The core Latin root is vidēre, "to see", which is also the source of English words like "video" and "evident". The term's specific application to secretive, obsessive, or illicit watching developed from its clinical and literary usage in French, shifting from a literal "seer" to one whose seeing is furtive and driven by a particular kind of pleasure or curiosity.
Analysis
- voy: From French, meaning "to see". Ultimately from Latin vidēre, "to see". - eur: A French agent noun suffix, equivalent to English "-er", indicating a person who performs an action.