Thursday, September 21, 2017

autumn


toska (n.)  /ˈtō-skə/
Russian word roughly translated as sadness, melancholia, lugubriousness

"No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels, it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases, it may be the desire for somebody or something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level, it grades into ennui, boredom."
— Vladimir Nabokov

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