Nostalgia | Definition of nostalgia by Merriam-Webster

Full Definition of NOSTALGIA

1

: the state of being homesick : homesickness

2

: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; also : something that evokes nostalgia

— nos·tal·gic \-jik\ adjective or noun

— nos·tal·gi·cal·ly \-ji-k(ə-)lē\ adverb

— nos·tal·gist \-jist\ noun

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Examples of NOSTALGIA

To dwell even fitfully on the past, for James, was to risk crippling nostalgia; the past was the shadow side of will and therefore must be rejected. —Jackson Lears, Nation, 26 Feb. 2007
My own feelings were that since I'd jettisoned employment, marriage, nostalgia and swampy regret, I was now rightfully a man aquiver with possibility and purpose … —Richard Ford, Independence Day, 1995
… the script is written in advance, around the uplifting themes of our civic religion: reconciliation, patriotism, self-sacrifice, the bond of leader and little guy, nostalgia for what is inevitably called “a simpler time.” —Katha Pollitt, Nation, 22 May 1995
Nevertheless, if one understands the nostalgia for war which marked these years of his break with America, it still remains a nostalgia that is empyreal and histrionic. Only once in his career did MacArthur lead as small a body of men as a company—one somehow feels that the idea of MacArthur, even as a boy, in command of anything less than a division verges on the ludicrous … —William Styron, “MacArthur,” 8 Oct. 1964, in William Styron, This Quiet Dust and Other Writings, 1982
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Origin of NOSTALGIA

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

First Known Use: 1756