The word ‘nostalgia’ refers to a sense of longing for a time in the past – perhaps a time in one’s own life or a time long before one’s life.
This word used to have a different meaning: a sense of longing to return home. This makes more sense given its etymology – it’s from Greek nostos, meaning ‘returning home’, and Greek algos, meaning ‘pain’.
The word is part of an entire etymological family of words that end with ‘-algia’. There are actually quite a lot of them. Most of them are nothing as abstract and philosophical as ‘nostalgia’ – most of them just refer, very literally, to pain in a certain part of the body. The table below lists a few (though far from all, as there are A LOT).
| Noun | Meaning |
| myalgia | muscle pain |
| abdominalgia | abdominal pain (obviously) |
| brachialgia | arm pain |
| cephalalgia | head pain – a headache |
| dentalgia | tooth pain – toothache |
| glossalgia | tongue pain |
| ophthalmalgia | eye pain |
| polyalgia | many pains |
There are a few particularly interesting ones. ‘Analgia’ – a state of painlessness. ‘Hypalgia’ – a reduced sensitivity to pain. ‘Hyperalgia’ – an increased sensitivity to pain. ‘Hypnalgia’ – pain during sleep. ‘Pygalgia’ – a pain in the arse.
There is another abstract one – ‘solastalgia’ – referring to a type of homesickness not when one has moved, but when one’s environment has changed. A very useful word.