Definition of "nostalgic"

And here, as I write, the faint, scarcely perceptible, ghost-like suspicion of a scent—a mere nostalgic fancy, compound, generic, synthetic and all-embracing—an abstract olfactory symbol of the "Tout Paris" of fifty years ago, comes back to me out of the past; and fain would I inhale it in all its pristine fulness and vigour.

1891, George Du Maurier, Peter Ibbetson‎

And it was their voices which affected Gudrun almost to swooning. They aroused a strange, nostalgic ache of desire, something almost demoniacal, never to be fulfilled.

1920 November 9, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter IX, in Women in Love, New York, N.Y.: Privately printed [by Thomas Seltzer] for subscribers only

Misery and a nameless nostalgic distress possessed him. He was twenty-three, and oh! so agonizingly conscious of the fact.

1921, Aldous Huxley, chapter 1, in Crome Yellow‎, London: Chatto & Windus

An opening sequence, featuring a de-aged Ford playing a younger Indy, is a bold and nostalgic gambit, offering a glimpse of what you've missed.

2023 June 29, City AM, London, page 18, column 2

But of course every well-brought-up person to-day knows that the Victorians were sentimentalists, nostalgics, escapists, self-deceivers.

1933 January, Gilbert Armitage, “Were these Victorians?”, in The Bookman‎, volume LXXXIII, number 496

In Bow Street court next morning, the slapper proved to be a paid agent of a group of nostalgics who call themselves The League of Empire Loyalists.

1957 August 19, Time, page 17

FA Cup Centenary 1872-1972. One for the football nostalgics.

2009 February 28, Steven Morris, “Brought to books: bibliophiles and traders enjoy giveaway bonanza”, in The Guardian‎