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Etymology : New Latin, from Greek nostos return home + New Latin -algia; akin to Greek neisthai to return, Old English genesan to survive, Sanskrit nasate he approaches
Pronunciation : nä-'stal-j&, n&-
Function : noun
Date : 1770

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1. feeling of longing for the past or bygone things, sentimentality. nostalgia\nos*tal"gi*a\ , n. [nl., fr. gr. a return home + pain.] (med.) homesickness; esp., a severe and sometimes fatal form of melancholia, due to homesickness.
2. Homesickness; esp., a severe and sometimes fatal form of melancholia, due to homesickness. longing for something past.
3. Nostalgia is an affectionate feeling you have for the past, especially for a particularly happy time. He might be influenced by nostalgia for his happy youth He discerned in the novel an air of Sixties nostalgia. a feeling that a time in the past was good, or the activity of remembering a good time in the past and wishing that things had not changed nostalgia for (nostos + algos ).