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.
How to use it
This entry uses a noun. Follow the examples for articles and singular or plural forms; not every noun takes “a” or “an.”
Choose “Saudade” when the meaning fits your context: A deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for something or someone loved and lost; the presence of an absence.
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.
Word in the Wild
Illustrative story: an imagined scene, not a documented event or interview.
A Portuguese woman who had lived in London for forty years was asked by a journalist whether she still missed home.
She was quiet for a long time. "I don't miss Portugal," she finally said. "I miss a version of Portugal that no longer exists. My parents' kitchen. A specific afternoon when I was eleven. Things that are gone even if I were to go back tomorrow."
The journalist wrote it down carefully, looking for the right word. The woman, of course, already had one.
Questions about this word
What does "Saudade" mean?
Saudade is noun meaning: The love that remains after someone is gone.. A deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for something or someone loved and lost; the presence of an absence.
Which words express “bittersweet impermanence”?
Saudade — The love that remains after someone is gone.
Where does the word "Saudade" come from?
From Portuguese saudade — longing, nostalgia. Deeply embedded in the fado music tradition. Related to Latin solitas 'loneliness.'