pang of nostalgia
1
7.4
- noun
- /pæŋ ʌv nɑˈstɑldʒə/
:
punzada de nostalgia
- I experienced a pang of nostalgia for childhood days while watching the classic cartoons on TV.
- felt a pang of nostalgia
Examples
-
And while the results of this speculation were not so very lovely, either, they did fill me with the sharp pangs of nostalgia that are both the bane and comfort of the forcibly relocated and unfairly dispossessed.
Fiction book (2002) -
It's only years after photos like this are taken that they have meaning and bring pangs of nostalgia to the viewer.
Blog text (34) -
Brings on pangs of nostalgia, having lived, experienced, and seen so much of what is shown in my 86 years of life.
Blog text (34) -
Walgreens offered a lower-cost option: a box of Ding Dongs, perhaps, to ease the pang of nostalgia struck by news that Hostess Brands was moving to liquidate.
Blog text (25) -
As she flipped through the old photo album, a sudden sharp pang of nostalgia washed over her.
-
Hearing that old song again brought a strong pang of nostalgia for the summer road trips we used to take.
Synonyms
76
5.3
A warm, slightly sad feeling for a time in the past
A sudden strong feeling when you remember the past
Antonyms
How Strong
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'pang' denotes a sudden sharp twinge and 'nostalgia' denotes yearning for the past, with 'of' linking them. This straightforward noun + of + noun pattern is common and cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Pang of nostalgia comes from the image of a quick, sharp pain when a memory suddenly appears. The word pang means a sudden sharp pain and nostalgia is the feeling of 'missing the past', so the phrase describes a sudden, strong longing for old times.