The Book of Human Emotions: From Ambiguphobia to Umpty - 154 Words from Around the World for How We Feel - Tiffany Watt Smith 2016

Gezelligheid

It’s no surprise that so many of northern Europe’s languages have a particular word for feeling cozy (from the Gaelic còsag, a small hole you can creep into). It’s when the rain is mizzling and the damp rises from the canals that we yearn for the feeling the Dutch call gezelligheid. Derived from the word for “friend,” gezelligheid describes both physical circumstances—being snug in a warm and homely place surrounded by good friends (it’s impossible to be gezelligheid alone)—and an emotional state of feeling “held” and comforted. The Danish hygge (coziness), the German Gemütlichkeit, which describes feelings of congeniality and companionship, and the Finnish kodikas (roughly: homely) have similar connotations. Riffle through the languages of the sunny Mediterranean, however, and the equivalent combination of physical enclosure and emotional comfort is much harder to find.

See also: INHABITIVENESS; COMFORT.