Nostalgia vs. Melancholy

Nostalgianoun

A longing for home or familiar surroundings; homesickness.

Nostalgianoun

A bittersweet yearning for the things of the past.

Nostalgianoun

Reminiscence of the speaker's childhood or younger years.

Nostalgianoun

Homesickness; esp., a severe and sometimes fatal form of melancholia, due to homesickness.

Nostalgianoun

A sentimental yearning to return to an earlier time remembered as happier or more pleasant, or a former place evoking happy memories; a longing to experience again a former happy time; as, a nostalgia for the brotherhood of the Woodstock music festival; a nostalgia for the comradeship of one's college friends.

Nostalgianoun

longing for something past

Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. The word nostalgia is learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of νόστος (nóstos), meaning , a Homeric word, and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning or , and was coined by a 17th-century medical student to describe the anxieties displayed by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home.

Melancholyadjective

(literary) Affected with great sadness or depression.

Melancholynoun

(historical) Black bile, formerly thought to be one of the four "cardinal humours" of animal bodies.

Melancholynoun

Great sadness or depression, especially of a thoughtful or introspective nature.

Melancholynoun

Depression of spirits; a gloomy state continuing a considerable time; deep dejection; gloominess.

Melancholynoun

Great and continued depression of spirits, amounting to mental unsoundness; melancholia.

Melancholynoun

Pensive maditation; serious thoughtfulness.

Melancholynoun

Ill nature.

Melancholyadjective

Depressed in spirits; dejected; gloomy dismal.

Melancholyadjective

Producing great evil and grief; causing dejection; calamitous; afflictive; as, a melancholy event.

Melancholyadjective

Somewhat deranged in mind; having the jugment impaired.

Melancholyadjective

Favorable to meditation; somber.

Melancholynoun

a feeling of thoughtful sadness

Melancholynoun

a constitutional tendency to be gloomy and depressed

Melancholynoun

a humor that was once believed to be secreted by the kidneys or spleen and to cause sadness and melancholy

Melancholyadjective

characterized by or causing or expressing sadness;

Melancholynoun

a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause

Melancholynoun

another term for melancholia (as a mental condition)

Melancholynoun

another term for black bile

Melancholyadjective

having a feeling of melancholy; sad and pensive

Melancholyadjective

causing or expressing sadness; depressing