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A.Word.A.Day--nostomania

This week's theme: fear and desire.

nostomania (nos-tuh-MAY-nee-uh, -mayn-yuh) noun

An overwhelming desire to return home or to go back to familiar places.

[From Greek nostos (a return home) + -mania (excessive enthusiasm or madness).]

You can consider nostomania to be an extreme form of nostalgia (literally, pain for home). For school kids, receiving a bad report card might induce nostophobia. A synonym for geriatrics is nostology.

-Anu Garg (garg AT wordsmith.org)

"Out of ignorance or out of nostomania for a Norman Rockwell vision of the American family, the public sector has retreated from day care." Andrew Ward; Child-care Centers Can Fulfill Mission; The New York Times; Jul 13, 1986.

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