homesick
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of homesick
Explanation
When you're away from home and you miss it terribly, you're homesick. Most kids get homesick when they first go to summer camp. Everyone feels homesick sometimes, but it's probably most common for kids to get homesick when they're on their first sleepover or visiting their grandparents, or even when they leave for college as freshmen. There is a wistful yearning included in the idea of being homesick — a longing to be back where you started. Homesickness came first, from the German heimweh, "home woe" or "home pain."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Homesick, he was desperate to go back to Saints.
From BBC • Mar. 31, 2025
For the Rolling Stone profile, Zamiri designed 3D-printed masks with phrases from Dylan’s songs, most notably “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” etched onto them.
From Salon • Jan. 28, 2025
“We tried this Bob Dylan-y thing, like …” she rattles off a rapid-fire nonsense representation of “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “then we went through something more funky, more ironic, kind of Talking Heads,” she says, laughing.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 19, 2024
She also has 25 No. 1 Hot Country songs like “Yellow Roses,” “Think About Love,” “Tennessee Homesick Blues” and “Jolene.”
From Seattle Times • Jun. 6, 2024
Homesick, I sighed and moved the mass of meat loaf around my plate.
From "If I Stay" by Gayle Forman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
