anhedonic

Syllables: an·he·don·ic/ænhiːˈdɒnɪk/US/ænhɪˈdɑnɪk/

anhedonic adjective: showing anhedonia; having no capacity to feel pleasure.

Adjective

anhedonic (comparative more anhedonic, superlative most anhedonic)

(also, figuratively) Showing anhedonia; having no capacity to feel pleasure.
- Briefly, the anhedonic syndrome is manifested, first, by the disappearance or impairment of the appetite for food and drink and by failure to experience the corresponding satisfactions. [...] Thirdly, the appetite or desire for rest and the satisfaction of recuperation are also involved in the...1944, Abraham Myerson, Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, Chicago, Ill.: American Medical Association, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 497, column 1
- The anhedonic depressed child creates special problems. He or she is bored most of the time, as he or she does not derive normal levels of pleasure from things, and the breadth of pleasurable events is rduced. The anhedonic youngster seems just to go through the motions of treatment.1990, Kevin D. Stark, “Implementation Issues in Treatment”, in Childhood Depression: School-based Intervention (The Guildford School Practitioner Series), New York, N.Y.: Guilford Press, →ISBN, page...

anhedonic (plural anhedonics)

A person who has anhedonia.
- [P]hysical anhedonics may not pay attention to tone stimuli (and therefore do not give SC [skin conductance] responses) because such subjects are identified on the basis of lacking pleasure and interest in physical events. As such, nonresponding in physical anhedonics may indicate validity for the...1995, Adrian Raine, Todd Lencz, Deana S. Benishay, “Schizotypal Personality and Skin Conductance Orienting”, in Adrian Raine, Todd Lencz, Sarnoff A. Mednick, editors, Schizotypal Personality...
- The anhedonic can still speak about happiness and meaning et al., but she has become incapable of feeling anything in them, of understanding anything about them, of hoping anything about them, or of believing them to exist as anything more than concepts. Everything has become an outline of the...1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest […], Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 693

Longing, officious, anhedonic, pleading.2015, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Hausfrau: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Random House, →ISBN, page 123:
As such, nonresponding in physical anhedonics may indicate validity for the way physical anhedonia is measured, but may not reflect a factor of etiologic significance.1995, Adrian Raine, Todd Lencz, Deana S. Benishay, “Schizotypal Personality and Skin Conductance Orienting”, in Adrian Raine, Todd Lencz...
An anhedonic can navigate, but has no location.1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest […], Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 693:

From anhedon(ia) + -ic.

What does anhedonic mean?: Anhedonic means showing anhedonia; having no capacity to feel pleasure.
How do you use anhedonic in a sentence?: Longing, officious, anhedonic, pleading.
What part of speech is anhedonic?: Anhedonic can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce anhedonic?: Anhedonic is pronounced /ænhiːˈdɒnɪk/ (UK).

Adapted from Wiktionary: anhedonic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-anhedonic.oga.

Cite this entry: “anhedonic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/anhedonic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.