Saudade

One of the hardest terms to translate is SAUDADE, the Portuguese word for a feeling, a longing for something that one is fond of, which is gone, but might return in a distant future.

It often carries a fatalist tone and a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might really never return.

Few other languages have a word with such meaning, making saudade a distinct mark of Portuguese culture. It has been said that this, more than anything else, represents what it is to be Portuguese.