homesickness · noun — the characteristic of being homesick; a strong, sad feeling of missing one's home (and often left-behind loved ones, such as family and friends) when physically away. It carries an Arena rating of 1600, earned across 11 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, homesickness ranks #412 of 17,188 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #2,353 of 17,162 for Most Elegant Words, #5,921 of 17,180 for Most Ingenious Words, #5,972 of 17,187 for Most Malleable Words.
Why “homesickness” is a great word
The acute distress caused by separation from one’s home or familiar environment. A calque of the German Heimweh, from Heim (“home”) + Weh (“woe, pain”), literally “home-woe”; it first entered English in the mid-18th century. Unlike nostalgia, a sentimental longing for the past, or hiraeth, a profound yearning for a lost homeland, homesickness is a raw and immediate affliction of absence. It is the particular scent of rain on a foreign pavement that is not your own, the hollow taste of a meal eaten in solitary lodgings, the oppressive quiet of an unfamiliar night—the body’s ledger of belonging, audited only in its absence.
❧ Essay by Lexicurio’s AI · definition, etymology & citations from published sources
Etymology
Calque of German Heimweh (“homesickness”, literally “home-woe”), equivalent to home + sickness.
noun
- The characteristic of being homesick; a strong, sad feeling of missing one's home (and often left-behind loved ones, such as family and friends) when physically away.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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