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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

nostalgia.

A longing for home or familiar surroundings; homesickness.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/nɒˈstæld͡ʒə/Received-Pronunciation/nɑˈstæld͡ʒə/General-American/nəˈstæld͡ʒə/General-American/nɔˈstæld͡ʒə/General-American
  1. A longing for home or familiar surroundings; homesickness.

    countable · uncommon · uncountable
    Seeing food at camp similar to his mother's cooking sent a wave of nostalgia through him.
  2. A bittersweet yearning for the things of the past.

    countable · uncountable
    an alumnus' feelings of nostalgia for his/her years in high school
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *nes- Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Hellenic *nóstos Ancient Greek νόστος (nóstos) Proto-Indo-European *h₂leg-der.? Ancient Greek ἄλγος (álgos) New Latin nostalgiabor. English nostalgia From New Latin nostalgia, coined by Johannes Hofer in 1688 from Ancient Greek νόστος (nóstos, “returning home”) + ἄλγος (álgos, “pain”), calquing German Heimweh. Ancient Greek *νοσταλγία (*nostalgía) is unattested. Transferred sense probably influenced by French nostalgie, especially in literature. Compare Italian nostalgia, Spanish nostalgia, Portuguese nostalgia and French nostalgie.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.