Saudade
noun /saʊˈdɑːdɪ/ — The love that remains after someone is gone.
Definition
A deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for something or someone loved and lost; the presence of an absence.
Beyond the definition
Portuguese and Galician. Often called 'untranslatable' — though it's more that English has no single word. Saudade is not just nostalgia, and not just grief. It's the bittersweet love that keeps living after its object is gone. The Portuguese believe this is the defining feeling of their national character.
Origin & history
From Portuguese saudade — longing, nostalgia. Deeply embedded in the fado music tradition. Related to Latin solitas 'loneliness.'
Example sentences
Illustrative sentences for learning, not verified community posts or sourced quotations.
She felt a saudade for the city she'd left that was sharper than any sadness.
Fado music is the sound of saudade — beautiful and aching at once.
The Portuguese have a word for this: saudade. The longing for something already loved.
He didn't miss her the way you miss someone you want back. It was saudade — the kind that has accepted its own permanence.
There is a saudade specific to childhood summers — not for any particular day, but for the feeling that time was still infinite.
Synonyms
longing, nostalgia, melancholy, yearning, bittersweetness
Antonyms
contentment, presence, satisfaction
Related words
Saudade vs longing
Saudade contains love — it is named for what you miss *because* you loved it, and the missing is inseparable from that love. Longing is pure absence: a gap waiting to be filled. Saudade acknowledges that the gap cannot be filled, and holds its presence anyway. You can long for something you have never had; saudade is specifically for what you have known and lost. Longing wants resolution. Saudade has made a kind of peace with the fact that none is coming.
Compare this word
Word in the Wild
See how this word appears in life, language and stories.
Illustrative sentences and imagined stories for learning — not verified sightings, interviews, or sourced quotations.
Fictional scene
Adult looking at childhood keepsakes
An adult looks wistfully at a tin containing a worn toy, a faded photograph, and a small scarf.
The emotional state of engaging with keepsakes of someone loved and lost perfectly embodies the presence of an absence, capturing a profound, melancholic longing that defines this deep emotional state.
Image credit: Wordspun · AI-generated illustration