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Familiar vs Nostalgia - What's the difference?

familiar | nostalgia |

As nouns the difference between familiar and nostalgia

is that familiar is a member of one's family or household while nostalgia is a longing for home or familiar surroundings; homesickness.

As an adjective familiar

is known to one.

familiar

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Known to one.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.}}
  • Acquainted.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=20 citation , passage=The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen. No one queried it. It was in the classic pattern of human weakness, mean and embarrassing and sad.}}
  • Intimate or friendly.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Be thou familiar , but by no means vulgar.
  • Inappropriately intimate or friendly.
  • (Camden)
  • Of or pertaining to a family; familial.
  • * Byron
  • familiar feuds

    Synonyms

    * (acquainted) acquainted * close, friendly, intimate, personal * (inappropriately intimate or friendly) cheeky, fresh, impudent

    Antonyms

    * (known to one) unfamiliar, unknown * (acquainted) unacquainted * (intimate) cold, cool, distant, impersonal, standoffish, unfriendly

    Derived terms

    * overfamiliar * familiarity * familiarly

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A member of one's family or household.
  • (obsolete) A close friend.
  • *, II.i.4.2:
  • a friend of mine, that finding a receipt in Brassavola, would needs take hellebore in substance, and try it on his own person; but had not some of his familiars come to visit him by chance, he had by his indiscretion hazarded himself; many such I have observed.
  • An attendant spirit, often in animal form.
  • The witch’s familiar was a black cat.

    nostalgia

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A longing for home or familiar surroundings; homesickness.
  • A bittersweet yearning for the things of the past.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-16, author=(Oliver Burkeman)
  • , volume=189, issue=10, page=20, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= This is the cutest article , passage= I can't have been the only person, last week, to feel a rush of nostalgia upon learning that Thames Water had removed a bus-sized, 15-tonne lump of food fat ("mixed with wet wipes") from the sewers under London. The fatberg was an August news story redolent of the old-fashioned silly season.}}
  • Reminiscence of the speaker's childhood or younger years.
  • Derived terms

    * nostalgic * nostalgically

    See also

    * halcyon days * hark back * memory lane * reminiscence ----