Edited by Richard Walker, Tuesday, 18 June 2024, 00:41
I used to think nostalgia meant a kind of sentimental hankering for times gone by, our own times or a past age of our romantic imagining. But it seems that when it first came into English in the 1700s it meant homesickness, derived from Ancient Greek νόστος nostos = going home and αλγία algia = pain (as in neuralgia for example), and it only came to mean longing for a time rather than for a place during the last century.
The modern Greek word νόσταλγία does indeed refer to homesickness but I haven't been able to find with certainty whether this has come directly from Ancient Greek or is a back-borrowing from English or perhaps French,
At any rate it is a beautiful word, with a lovely wistful feel to it, and its original meaning of homesickness is the one I prefer.
Nostalgia - does it mean what it used to?
I used to think nostalgia meant a kind of sentimental hankering for times gone by, our own times or a past age of our romantic imagining. But it seems that when it first came into English in the 1700s it meant homesickness, derived from Ancient Greek νόστος nostos = going home and αλγία algia = pain (as in neuralgia for example), and it only came to mean longing for a time rather than for a place during the last century.
The modern Greek word νόσταλγία does indeed refer to homesickness but I haven't been able to find with certainty whether this has come directly from Ancient Greek or is a back-borrowing from English or perhaps French,
At any rate it is a beautiful word, with a lovely wistful feel to it, and its original meaning of homesickness is the one I prefer.