coined by John Koenig
anemoia
Homesickness for a decade you were born too late to see, set off by a box of a stranger's 1960s slides or a song from before your parents met.
Words for longing
Wanting something absent, whether a person, a place, or a version of yourself.
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Fernweh
Standing at an airport departures board, reading out Windhoek and Montevideo, and aching to go somewhere you have never been.
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hiraeth
A Welsh nurse in a London flat hears a male voice choir through the wall and grieves for a valley, and people, she cannot get back.
coined by John Koenig
liberosis
Checking work email late on a Sunday night while the dog sleeps on the rug, and wanting to mind about the inbox as little as the dog does.
coined by John Koenig
onism
Dropping the little Street View figure onto a random road in Kazakhstan and knowing that this, a fence and a gas station, is as close as you will get.
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saudade
Hearing a fado on a Lisbon tram and missing a grandmother's kitchen that is gone, while half-enjoying the missing.
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Sehnsucht
Hearing a song from when you were sixteen in a supermarket aisle and wanting, badly, something you cannot name or get back.
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toska тоска
A cab driver whose son has died tells the story to passengers who do not listen, then to his horse.
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Wanderlust
Refreshing a page of cheap flights at midnight with a full week of work ahead, wanting to be on any road but this one.