What is "saudade"

Saudade (, or , ; plural saudades) is a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return. A stronger form of saudade might be felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown, such as a lost lover, or a family member who has gone missing, moved away, separated, or died.

Saudade was once described as "the love that remains" after someone is gone. Saudade is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again. It can be described as an emptiness, like someone (e.g., one's children, parents, sibling, grandparents, friends, pets) or something (e.g., places, things one used to do in childhood, or other activities performed in the past) that should be there in a particular moment is missing, and the individual feels this absence. It brings sad and happy feelings altogether, sadness for missing and happiness for having experienced the feeling.

Saudade is a word in Portuguese and Galician (from which it entered Spanish) that claims no direct translation in English. In Portuguese, "Tenho saudades tuas" (European Portuguese) or "Tenho saudades de você" (Brazilian Portuguese), translates as "I have (feel) saudade of you" meaning "I miss you", but carries a much stronger tone. In fact, one can have saudade of someone whom one is with, but have some feeling of loss towards the past or the future. For example, one can have "saudade" towards part of the relationship or emotions once experienced for/with someone, though the person in question still is part of one's life, as in "Tenho saudade do que fomos" (I feel "saudade" of the way we were). Another example can illustrate this use of the word saudade: "Que saudade!" indicating a general feeling of longing, whereby the object of longing can be a general and undefined entity/occasion/person/group/period etc. This feeling of longing can be accompanied or better described by an abstract will to be where the object of longing is.

Despite being hard to translate, saudade has equivalent words in other cultures, and is often related to music styles expressing this feeling such as the blues for African-Americans, dor in Romania, Tizita in Ethiopia, or Assouf for the Tuareg people. In Slovak, the word is clivota or cnenie, and Sehnsucht in German.

Nascimento and Meandro (2005) cite Duarte Nunes Leão's definition of saudade: "Memory of something with a desire for it."

In Brazil, the day of Saudade is officially celebrated on 30 January.

Saudade is an album by Brazilian composer Moacir Santos recorded in 1974 and released on the Blue Note label.

is a 2011 Japanese comedy film directed by Katsuya Tomita.

Saudade is the fourth single by the Japanese pop-rock band Porno Graffitti, it was released on September 13, 2000. Otsuka Pharmaceutical " Pocari Sweat" CM song.

Saudade traditionally is a Portuguese word, describing an emotion. The word has no equivalent in the English language.

The word may also refer to:

• Saudade, a 2011 Japanese film
• Saudade, a 1974 album by Moacir Santos
• Saudade, a 2014 album by Thievery Corporation
• A 2013 EP by indie pop singer-songwriter Tei Shi
• An instrumental by alternative rock band Love and Rockets
• A supergroup band, formed in 2016, consisting of Chino Moreno of Deftones, Team Sleep, Palms, and Crosses; Dr. Know of Bad Brains; jazz keyboardist John Medeski of Medeski Martin & Wood; bassist Chuck Doom of Crosses and Team Sleep; and drummer Mackie Jayson of Cro-Mags and Bad Brains

Saudade ( Portuguese for "Longing") is the seventh studio album by Washington DC electronica duo Thievery Corporation released in 2014 via their Eighteenth Street Lounge Music label.