nostalgic

comparative more nostalgic · superlative most nostalgic

1. Of, having, or relating to nostalgia.

   Misery and a nameless nostalgic distress possessed him. He was twenty-three, and oh! so agonizingly conscious of the fact.

   1921, Aldous Huxley, chapter 1, in Crome Yellow, London: Chatto & Windus

   3 more examples

   And here, as I write, the faint, scarcely perceptible, ghost-like suspicion of a scent—a mere nostalgic fancy, compound, generic, synthetic and all-embracing—an abstract olfactory symbol of the "Tout Paris" of fifty years ago, comes back to me out of the past; and fain would I inhale it in all its pristine fulness and vigour.

   1891, George Du Maurier, Peter Ibbetson

   And it was their voices which affected Gudrun almost to swooning. They aroused a strange, nostalgic ache of desire, something almost demoniacal, never to be fulfilled.

   1920 November 9, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter IX, in Women in Love, New York, N.Y.: Privately printed [by Thomas Seltzer] for subscribers only, →OCLC

   An opening sequence, featuring a de-aged Ford playing a younger Indy, is a bold and nostalgic gambit, offering a glimpse of what you've missed.

   2023 June 29, City AM, London, page 18, column 2

plural nostalgics

1. A person who displays nostalgia for something.

   FA Cup Centenary 1872-1972. One for the football nostalgics.

   2009 February 28, Steven Morris, “Brought to books: bibliophiles and traders enjoy giveaway bonanza”, in The Guardian

   2 more examples

   But of course every well-brought-up person to-day knows that the Victorians were sentimentalists, nostalgics, escapists, self-deceivers.

   1933 January, Gilbert Armitage, “Were these Victorians?”, in The Bookman, volume LXXXIII, number 496

   In Bow Street court next morning, the slapper proved to be a paid agent of a group of nostalgics who call themselves The League of Empire Loyalists.

   1957 August 19, Time, page 17

   Synonyms: nostalgist