"hedon" meaning in English

See hedon in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈhɛdɒn/, /ˈhiːdən/ Forms: hedons [plural]
Etymology: Back-formation from hedonism, ultimately from Ancient Greek ἡδονή (hēdonḗ, “pleasure”). Doublet of Edoni. Etymology templates: {{back-formation|en|hedonism}} Back-formation from hedonism, {{der|en|grc|ἡδονή||pleasure}} Ancient Greek ἡδονή (hēdonḗ, “pleasure”), {{doublet|en|Edoni}} Doublet of Edoni Head templates: {{en-noun}} hedon (plural hedons)
  1. (economics) A unit of pleasure used to theoretically weigh people's happiness. Synonyms: utile, util Derived forms: hypohedonia

Inflected forms

{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "dolor"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "hedonism"
      },
      "expansion": "Back-formation from hedonism",
      "name": "back-formation"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "grc",
        "3": "ἡδονή",
        "4": "",
        "5": "pleasure"
      },
      "expansion": "Ancient Greek ἡδονή (hēdonḗ, “pleasure”)",
      "name": "der"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "Edoni"
      },
      "expansion": "Doublet of Edoni",
      "name": "doublet"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Back-formation from hedonism, ultimately from Ancient Greek ἡδονή (hēdonḗ, “pleasure”). Doublet of Edoni.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "hedons",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "hedon (plural hedons)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English back-formations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 2 entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Economics",
          "orig": "en:Economics",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "hypohedonia"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              54,
              60
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1986, Rosemarie Tong, Ethics in policy analysis, →ISBN:",
          "text": "Supposedly, utilitarians are able to add and subtract hedons (units of pleasure) and dolors (units of pain) without any signs of cognitive or affective distress[…]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A unit of pleasure used to theoretically weigh people's happiness."
      ],
      "id": "en-hedon-en-noun-Hkeft9-J",
      "links": [
        [
          "economics",
          "economics"
        ],
        [
          "unit",
          "unit"
        ],
        [
          "pleasure",
          "pleasure"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(economics) A unit of pleasure used to theoretically weigh people's happiness."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "utile"
        },
        {
          "word": "util"
        }
      ],
      "topics": [
        "economics",
        "sciences"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈhɛdɒn/"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈhiːdən/"
    }
  ],
  "word": "hedon"
}
{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "dolor"
    }
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "hypohedonia"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "hedonism"
      },
      "expansion": "Back-formation from hedonism",
      "name": "back-formation"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "grc",
        "3": "ἡδονή",
        "4": "",
        "5": "pleasure"
      },
      "expansion": "Ancient Greek ἡδονή (hēdonḗ, “pleasure”)",
      "name": "der"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "Edoni"
      },
      "expansion": "Doublet of Edoni",
      "name": "doublet"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Back-formation from hedonism, ultimately from Ancient Greek ἡδονή (hēdonḗ, “pleasure”). Doublet of Edoni.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "hedons",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "hedon (plural hedons)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English back-formations",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English doublets",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms derived from Ancient Greek",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 2 entries",
        "Pages with entries",
        "en:Economics"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              54,
              60
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1986, Rosemarie Tong, Ethics in policy analysis, →ISBN:",
          "text": "Supposedly, utilitarians are able to add and subtract hedons (units of pleasure) and dolors (units of pain) without any signs of cognitive or affective distress[…]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A unit of pleasure used to theoretically weigh people's happiness."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "economics",
          "economics"
        ],
        [
          "unit",
          "unit"
        ],
        [
          "pleasure",
          "pleasure"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(economics) A unit of pleasure used to theoretically weigh people's happiness."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "economics",
        "sciences"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈhɛdɒn/"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈhiːdən/"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "utile"
    },
    {
      "word": "util"
    }
  ],
  "word": "hedon"
}

Download raw JSONL data for hedon meaning in English (1.8kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-02-14 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-02-01 using wiktextract (f492ef9 and 59dc20b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.