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Nostalgia vs Wistfulness - What's the difference?

nostalgia | wistfulness |

As nouns the difference between nostalgia and wistfulness

is that nostalgia is a longing for home or familiar surroundings; homesickness while wistfulness is the state or characteristic of being wistful.

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 ----

    wistfulness

    English

    Noun

    (-)
  • The state or characteristic of being wistful.
  • *{{quote-news
    • , year=2012 , date=May 27 , author=Nathan Rabin , title=TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “New Kid On The Block” (season 4, episode 8; originally aired 11/12/1992) , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=It’s a lovely sequence cut too short because the show seems afraid to give itself over to romance and whimsy and wistfulness when it has wedgie jokes to deliver. }}