Word
wistful
Phoneticswist·ful
US/ˈwɪstfəɫ/
UK/wˈɪstfəl/
Definition
adj. feeling a little sad because you are thinking about something you miss or something you wish you had.
adj. characterised by melancholy longing or yearning, typically for something lost or unattainable.
Examples
“She looked at the old photo with a wistful smile.”
“The old man spent his evenings walking by the lake, looking at the water with a wistful expression as he remembered his youth.”
“The novel's wistful tone captures the bittersweet nature of growing up, where the protagonist must leave behind the safety of childhood for the uncertain world of adulthood.”
Examples
simple
“She looked at the old photo with a wistful smile.”
contextual
“The old man spent his evenings walking by the lake, looking at the water with a wistful expression as he remembered his youth.”
complex
“The novel's wistful tone captures the bittersweet nature of growing up, where the protagonist must leave behind the safety of childhood for the uncertain world of adulthood.”
Usage
Usually describes a person's expression, look, or tone of voice.
Teaching tip
This word is more about a quiet, thoughtful sadness than a loud or angry one; it often appears in literature to describe nostalgia.
Real-World Examples
“Instead, it’s a wistful paean to escape, lent a tear-jerking quality by the sense said escape may never happen.” “Perhaps, like my diasporic peers who return every summer, I find it easier to fall back on wistful memories and fantasy.” 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.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/wistful