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