nostalgic means of, having, or relating to nostalgia.
Why “nostalgic” is a great word
Characterized by or evoking a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past. From the Greek *nostos* ("return home") and *algos* ("pain, grief"), via New Latin *nostalgia*; the term was coined in the late 17th century by Swiss physician Johannes Hofer to describe a medical condition. Unlike "homesick," which is a spatial ache for a present place, or "melancholy," a formless, pervasive gloom, nostalgic is a temporal ache, a specific bittersweetness for a time that can no longer be visited. It is the scent of rain on hot asphalt that becomes a vanished childhood summer, the crackle of a certain record groove that maps a lost room, the particular gold of an autumn light that illuminates a door you can no longer walk through—the beautiful, piercing recognition that the past is a country, and you are forever exiled from its shores.
adj
- Of, having, or relating to nostalgia.
noun
- A person who displays nostalgia for something.e.g.“But of course every well-brought-up person to-day knows that the Victorians were sentimentalists, nostalgics, escapists, self-deceivers.”