anemoia
/ˌænəˈmɔɪə/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 0.00 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Yet, from reboots to genre revivals, nostalgia remains a powerful force in pop culture. So does an associated phenomenon, called anemoia, which is essentially nostalgia for a past you’ve never experienced. Nostalgia and anemoia have been Broadway’s bread and butter for decades."
- "Goetzman (who also records his own own^([sic]) original music under the alias Raspberries and Rum) brought up another idea as a possible explanation for his Toto-based virality: anemoia. That’s the concept of a person feeling nostalgic for something they never experienced.[…]What I can say is this little video and its embedded nostalgia — or anemoia — seems to be bringing a little happiness to people all over the world."
- "A White Christmas is the perfect example of anemoia, nostalgia for a time we never knew."
- "The theme of that YouTube chat was the idea of anemoia, a niche form of nostalgia that prompts a yearning for a historical time and place that you have never actually experienced. Photographs can be perfect anemoia triggers, and this one works by layering retro longing from several different eras."
Etymology
Coined by American author and neologist John Koenig in 2012, whose project, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, aims to come up with new words for emotions that currently lack words. From Ancient Greek ἄνεμος (ánemos, “wind”) + -oia, extracted from loanwords like paranoia where -νοια (-noia) refers to a certain state of mind.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: ἄνεμος