wistful

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 

View all »
Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. adjective Full of wishful yearning.
  2. adjective Pensively sad; melancholy.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (3)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples

  • Her face grew slightly wistful, the cheeks smoothing. —  Nine Princes In Amber
  • Elspeth's tone was wistful, her face full of undisguised hope. —  Arrow's Fall
  • In witty, wistful, and original essays, Barbara Holland decries this deplorable result of "progress" and reminds us of the good ol 'days, when, yes, everything was better. —  WASN'T THE GRASS GREENER A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories
  • Laura felt the same way she had last Christmas when she'd hung one of Trixie's baby shoes on the tree as an ornament: wistful, aware that her daughter had once been tiny enough to fit into this slipper but unable to hold that picture in her head along with the one in front of her eyes-a teenage Trixie dancing around the balsam in her bare feet, stringing white lights in her wake. —  The Tenth Circle
  • Ahlert managed to look startled, wistful, and mildly annoyed. —  The Swordbearer
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Words tagged wistful

nostalgic

Stats

Wistful has been looked up 607 times, favorited twice, listed 62 times, and commented on 0 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

sorrowful ·  mournful ·  pensive ·  childlike ·  regretful ·  thoughtful ·  poignant ·  shy ·  tremulous ·  passionate ·  hopeful ·  uneasy
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. From obsolete wistly, intently.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Prob. for *whistful, based on the older adverb wistly, which is prob. for whistly. The assumption that wistful stands for wishful is untenable; for the required change wishful later *wisful later wistful could not occur in the modern English period, particularly with wishful itself remaining in use; but the sense ‘longing’ appears to have arisen in part from association with wishful. It is to be noted that wistful in the earliest instance quoted (Browne) does not mean, as some dictionaries give it, merely ‘observant’ or ‘attentive,’ and that its later uses are more or less indefinite, indicating that it was orig. a poetical word, based on some other, which other is prob. wistly for whistly as here assumed.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/ˈwɪstfəl/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about twice a month.

Recent Lookups

gioco · Eumaeus · outwardly · urge · fat-soluble

Recent Favorites

metaplasm · emulous · abdicated · pique · mellifluous

Recent Pronunciations

milosrdenstvi · lichen-covered · futon · sagacity · monoragngocious