Wishfulness
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The state or quality of being wishful. uncountable, usually
"She asked her little question with something of the softness of her old manner, with something of the longing loving wishfulness which used to make so many of her questions sweet to her mother’s ears."
- 2 an unrealistic yearning wordnet
- 3 Wishful thinking. uncountable, usually
"For the long lost glories, that never in fact existed save in the wishfulness of their brains, were being remembered with a reality as vivid, if not more so, as truth itself."
Example
More examples"She asked her little question with something of the softness of her old manner, with something of the longing loving wishfulness which used to make so many of her questions sweet to her mother’s ears."
Etymology
From wishful + -ness.
Related phrases
More for "wishfulness"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.