Word.ws English Dictionary

hedon

/ˈhɛdɒn/

hedon noun: a unit of pleasure used to theoretically weigh people's happiness.

Noun

hedon (plural hedons)

  1. A unit of pleasure used to theoretically weigh people's happiness.
    • 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[…]1986, Rosemarie Tong, Ethics in policy analysis, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    utile, util

Proper noun capitalized: Hedon

Hedon

  1. A town and civil parish with a town council in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England (OS grid ref TA1828).

Synonyms of hedon

Antonyms

Forms of hedon

pluralhedons

Origin of hedon

Back-formation from hedonism, ultimately from Ancient Greek ἡδονή (hēdonḗ, “pleasure”). Doublet of Edoni.

Words formed from hedon

Questions about hedon

What does hedon mean?
Hedon means a unit of pleasure used to theoretically weigh people's happiness.
What part of speech is hedon?
Hedon can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce hedon?
Hedon is pronounced /ˈhɛdɒn/.
What is the plural of hedon?
The plural of hedon is hedons.

Words near hedon in the dictionary

  1. Hedlund
  2. Hedlunds
  3. Hedmark
  4. hedn't
  5. Hednesford
  6. hedon
  7. hedonal
  8. Hedone
  9. Hedong
  10. hedonic
  11. hedonic adaptation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hedon (page history and authors); Hedon (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:

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