Wistful

//ˈwɪstfəl// adj

adj ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Full of longing or yearning.

    "His eyes grew wistful as he recalled his university days."

  2. 2
    Sad and thoughtful.
Adjective
  1. 1
    showing pensive sadness wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
pensiveashamedatrabiliaratrabiliaryatrabiliousatrabilious

Example

More examples

"He has a wistful look on his face."

Etymology

Presumably from *whistful, from whist (“silent”) + -ful, based on older wistly. It is implausible that it derives from wishful, the required sound change being wishful → *wisful → wistful, which could not occur in Modern English, particularly not with wishful continuing in use. However, the sense of “longing” appears to be influenced by wishful, making wistful an ambiguous poetic word.

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