Origins
The word 'hedonist' is a relatively modern English coinage — it first appears in the mid-nineteenth century — but it draws on one of the oldest and most fundamental concepts in Greek philosophy: 'hēdonē' (ἡδονή), pleasure. The Greek noun derived from the adjective 'hēdys' (ἡδύς), meaning sweet, pleasant, or agreeable, which traces to Proto-Indo-European *sweh₂d-, one of the earliest reconstructable words for the sensation of sweetness. This root produced an extraordinary family of cognates: English 'sweet' (through Germanic), Latin 'suāvis' (agreeable, whence English 'suave'), Sanskrit 'svādu' (sweet), and Welsh 'chwedl' (tale, story — originally something 'sweet to hear').
The philosophical concept of hēdonē as the highest good was first articulated systematically by Aristippus of Cyrene (c. 435-356 BCE), a student of Socrates who founded the Cyrenaic school. Aristippus taught that bodily pleasure in the present moment was the only intrinsically good thing, and that all human action is ultimately motivated by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. This was a radical position even in free-thinking Athens, and it placed Aristippus in direct opposition to other Socratic schools that identified the good with virtue, knowledge, or self-sufficiency.
Epicurus (341-270 BCE) developed a more nuanced version of hedonism that distinguished between kinetic pleasures (active enjoyment, stimulation) and katastematic pleasures (the stable, calm pleasure of being free from pain and disturbance). Epicurus argued that the highest pleasure was not sensory indulgence but 'ataraxia' — tranquility, freedom from anxiety. His hedonism was, paradoxically, austere: the wise person achieves the greatest pleasure by desiring little, living simply, and avoiding entanglements that produce worry.
Development
This distinction between vulgar and refined hedonism has dogged the word ever since. In popular usage, 'hedonist' almost always implies sensory indulgence — fine food, luxurious living, sexual pleasure. In philosophical usage, it can refer to any ethical theory that identifies pleasure (broadly conceived) as the ultimate good, including the utilitarian tradition founded by Jeremy Bentham, who explicitly built his moral philosophy on what he called 'the greatest happiness principle.'
The English word 'hedonism' was coined in 1856, apparently by the philosopher William Lecky or one of his contemporaries, by combining Greek 'hēdonē' with the suffix '-ism.' 'Hedonist' followed immediately. The words were created to fill a gap in English philosophical vocabulary: there was no existing term that cleanly designated the ancient pleasure-principle as a named doctrine.
The word entered general English usage rapidly, helped by Victorian culture's intense interest in classifying moral positions. The Victorians found hedonism fascinating precisely because it scandalized them — the idea that pleasure rather than duty was the foundation of ethics was both intellectually serious and morally shocking. 'Hedonist' acquired its pejorative undertone in this context: it was useful as a label for people whose pursuit of pleasure the speaker wished to condemn.
Scientific Usage
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, 'hedonist' has undergone partial rehabilitation. The 'hedonic treadmill' — a concept from psychology suggesting that people quickly adapt to both positive and negative circumstances, returning to a baseline level of happiness — has made 'hedonic' a neutral technical term. 'Hedonic pricing' in economics measures how much people will pay for pleasure-related attributes. And popular culture increasingly uses 'hedonist' with an admiring rather than disapproving tone, particularly in the context of food, travel, and lifestyle marketing.
The deepest irony in the word's history is that the ancient philosopher most associated with hedonism — Epicurus — lived on bread, water, and cheese, slept on a simple bed, and wrote that 'the beginning and root of every good is the pleasure of the stomach,' only to clarify that he meant freedom from hunger, not feasting. The word 'hedonist' conjures images of champagne and silk; its philosophical ancestor lived like a monk.