Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Longing to return home: Feeling sad or unhappy because one is away from home and misses familiar people, places, or things.

Usage

• The adjective homesick describes a state of emotional distress caused by separation from one's home environment. It is typically used to describe a person's feelings.
• It is commonly used with the verb feel (e.g., feel homesick) or the verb be (e.g., be homesick).
• It can be used in both attributive position (before a noun) and predicative position (after a linking verb like 'be', 'feel', 'become').

Examples

• Adjective:
  • She felt terribly homesick during her first week at university.
  • The homesick soldier wrote letters to his family every day.
  • Living abroad can be exciting, but it's easy to become homesick.

Advanced Usage

• "to be/get homesick for (something)": To miss a specific aspect of home.
  • After months in the city, he was homesick for the quiet of the countryside.
• The feeling is often associated with nostalgia and can be triggered by familiar smells, foods, or songs.

Variants and Related Words

• Homesickness (noun): The state or feeling of being homesick.
  • She suffered from acute homesickness when she moved overseas.

Synonyms

• Nostalgic: A feeling of pleasure and sadness mixed when thinking about happy memories from the past. (Note: 'Nostalgic' can be broader than 'homesick', as it is not exclusively tied to missing home.)
• Lonesome: Sad because one lacks friends or company. (This focuses more on missing people than a place.)

Antonyms

• Content: In a state of peaceful happiness or satisfaction.
• Settled: Comfortable and established in a new place.

Related Idioms and Phrases

• Home away from home: A place where one feels as comfortable as one does in one's own home. (This is the opposite feeling of being homesick.)
  • The friendly hostel became a home away from home for the travelers.

Adjective

1. longing to return home