Feminine

saudade

Meaning

Concepts

wistfulness, melancholy, nostalgia, yearning, longing; the feeling of missing something or someone

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/sawˈda.d͡ʒi/

Inherited from Latin

solitas

In summary

Inherited from Old Galician-Portuguese soydade, from Latin sōlitātem (“solitude”). The modern saudade may owe its irregular development to one or more of the following factors: * Analogy with Arabic سَوْدَاء (sawdāʔ, “melancholy”, literally “black bile”) * Learned hypercorrection; compare the 'vulgar' coisa alongside the Latinism causa * Analogy with words such as saudar (“to wish good health”) or the archaic saudade ("salvation" < *salūtātem)