homesick

Etymology

The OED takes it as formed from English home + sick,^[2][3] first recorded a few years before homesickness.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged, Webster's Third and Klein instead treat it as a back-formation from homesickness,^[4][5][6] which is a loan translation of German Heimweh, formed from Heim (“home”) and Weh (“woe, pain”).^[6][4][2] Etymonline likewise regards the adjective as a translation of the German noun.^[7] According to Etymonline, the German compound comes from Swiss dialect, where it expressed a longing for the mountains, and Swiss mercenaries carried it into other European languages in the 17th century.^[7] The OED dates Heimweh in German to the 16th century, and English also borrowed it as a noun, recorded from before 1721.^[2] Compare nostalgia.^[7][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Sad from longing for one's home or family while away from it: 1748, in a collection of hymns from the hymn-book of the Moravian Brethren.^[2][4] Etymonline dates it by 1749, in a Brethren hymnal, glossing it "ill or depressed from being absent from home".^[7] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate gives 1756 and Dictionary.com 1790–1800.^[8][3]

Semantic evolution

The noun homesickness followed in 1756, in a translation of Keyssler's Travels.^[2] From 1759, in J. Amherst's journal, the homesick was used for homesick people collectively.^[2] The Historical Thesaurus files the adjective under melancholy and nostalgia.^[9] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also records a wider sense, a yearning for a familiar or sympathetic setting, or for a past time, as in Willa Cather and A. J. Toynbee.^[4]

Timeline

• 1748 – sad from longing for one's home or family during an absence.^[2][4] Etymonline gives 1749.^[7]
• 1759 – the homesick, homesick people collectively.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Sad and longing for one's home and family while away from them: She was homesick for her first month at university.^{[10][4][2][11]}
2. Yearning for a familiar or welcoming place, or for an earlier time.^[4]

Noun

1. the homesick: homesick people as a group.^[2]

Word family

• homesickness

Related words

• home
• sick
• nostalgia

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin