What Does "Hedonic" Mean in an Economic Context?

In an economic context, "hedonic" means of or relating to utility. (In a more general sense, hedonic is related in its etymology to hedonism, which is the search for pleasure.) A hedonic econometric model is one where the independent variables are related to quality; e.g. the quality of a product that one might buy or the quality of a job one might take.

A hedonic model of wages might correspond to the idea that there are compensating differentials -- that workers would get higher wages for jobs that were more unpleasant.