nostalgia
/nɒˈstæld͡ʒə//nɑˈstæld͡ʒə/
nostalgia noun: a longing for home or familiar surroundings; homesickness.
Noun
nostalgia (countable and uncountable, plural nostalgias)
- A longing for home or familiar surroundings; homesickness.
- Seeing food at camp similar to his mother's cooking sent a wave of nostalgia through him.
- I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not.1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter L, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC
- Antonyms:
- nostopathy, nostophobia
- A bittersweet yearning for the things of the past.
- an alumnus' feelings of nostalgia for his/her years in high school
- I can't have been the only person, last week, to feel a rush of nostalgia upon learning that Thames Water had removed a bus-sized, 15-tonne lump of food fat ("mixed with wet wipes") from the sewers under London. The fatberg was an August news story redolent of the old-fashioned silly season.2013 August 16, Oliver Burkeman, “This is the cutest article”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 10, page 20
nostalgia meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam
nostalgia in Hindi
- bittersweet yearning for the things of the past
- उदासी udāsī, गृहातुरता gŕhāturtā, गृहस्मारी gŕhasmārī, गृह-विरह gŕh-virah
nostalgia in Tamil
- அந்நாள் விதும்பல், நினைவேக்கம், பசுமையான நினைவு, நீங்காத நினைவு, பிரிந்திருக்கும்போது வீடு, சொந்தபந்தம் முதலியவை மீதான ஏக்கம்
nostalgia in Urdu
- bittersweet yearning for the things of the past
- اداسی udāsī
nostalgia in Malayalam
- bittersweet yearning for the things of the past
- ഗൃഹാതുരത്വം gr̥hāturatvaṁ, ഗതാതുരത്വം gatāturatvaṁ
More languagesFewer languages
- nostalgia in Kannada
- ಮನೆಗೀಳು, ಮನೆ ಹಂಬಲ, ಹಳೆಯದರ ಹಂಬಲ
- nostalgia in Punjabi
- یاد yād
- nostalgia in Tagalog
- nostalhiya, pagbabalik-tanaw, panglaw, mapanglaw
- nostalgia in Arabic
- حَنِين ḥanīn, اِشْتِيَاق ištiyāq
- nostalgia in Malay
- nostalgia
- nostalgia in Indonesian
- nostalgia
- nostalgia in Persian
- اندمه andame, نوستالژی nostâlži
- nostalgia in Thai
- ความคิดถึง
- nostalgia in Vietnamese
- hoài niệm, nuối tiếc, nỗi nhớ
Examples of nostalgia in a sentence
- “The nostalgia economy”, as named by Quartz, is the most powerful trend in fashion since florals or trousers and is a reaction to what’s happening in the world.2020 September 9, Priya Elan, “Now-stalgia: why fashion is going back to the future”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
- All are now private homes, but it oozes nostalgia (which I like).2025 November 12, 'Mystery Shopper', “Is Devon the cream of the crop?”, in RAIL, number 1048, page 48:
- [Mark] Carney, perhaps the most articulate of those giving voice to this sentiment, vowed he would no longer live in a state of nostalgia, waiting for an old world to return.2026 January 21, Patrick Wintour, “Middle powers assemble? Trump disorder prompts talk of new liberal alliances”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
Antonyms of nostalgia
Forms of nostalgia
| plural | nostalgias |
|---|---|
| alternative form (archaic) | nostalgy |
Origin of 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.
Words formed from nostalgia
Questions about nostalgia
- What does nostalgia mean?
- Nostalgia means a longing for home or familiar surroundings; homesickness.
- What is nostalgia in Hindi?
- Nostalgia in Hindi is उदासी (udāsī), गृहातुरता (gŕhāturtā), गृहस्मारी (gŕhasmārī). See Nostalgia meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use nostalgia in a sentence?
- “The nostalgia economy”, as named by Quartz, is the most powerful trend in fashion since florals or trousers and is a reaction to what’s happening in the world.
- What part of speech is nostalgia?
- Nostalgia is a noun.
- How do you pronounce nostalgia?
- Nostalgia is pronounced /nɒˈstæld͡ʒə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of nostalgia?
- The plural of nostalgia is nostalgias.
Words near nostalgia in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: nostalgia (page history and authors); nostalgia (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); nostalgia (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); یاد (Punjabi) (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-nostalgia.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-nostalgia.wav.
Cite this entry: “nostalgia.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nostalgia. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.