Rueful

//ˈɹuːfl̩// adj

adj ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Causing, feeling, or expressing regret or sorrow, especially in a wry or humorous way.

    "Merely, he received it with the rueful indulgence that he would show towards Tom when he came through with one of his solutions for ending world poverty or the arms race."

  2. 2
    Inspiring pity or compassion.
  3. 3
    Bad; woeful; deplorable.
Adjective
  1. 1
    feeling or expressing pain or sorrow for sins or offenses wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
remorsefulpatheticmiserablepitiablepitifulpitisome

Example

More examples

"Tom's house is in a rueful state."

Etymology

From Middle English ruful, rewful. By surface analysis, rue + -ful.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.