Homer’s word for the journey home, and the title under which the second half of the Odyssey is read by every Greek schoolchild. Nostos literally means “return” — but it carries a heavier load than the English word does.
A nostos is never a straight line. The hero who left isn’t the hero coming back. Twenty years of war, ten years of detours, and the man stepping onto Ithaca’s beach is no longer the man who sailed for Troy. Penelope can feel it. Argos the dog can smell it. The earth under his feet is the same; he is not.
The word survives in English in nostalgia — nostos + algos (pain). The ache for a homecoming. The Odyssey’s quiet thesis: that ache is the engine of becoming someone worth coming home as.