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Wistful Has a Wishful History
We see you there, dear reader, gazing silently up at the moon, heart aching to know the history of wistful, as if it could be divined on the lunar surface. And we’d like to ease your melancholy by telling you that the knowledge you seek—nay, pine for—is closer at hand. But the etymology of wistful, while intriguing, is not entirely clear. It’s thought that the word is a combination of wistly, a now-obsolete word meaning “intently” and, perhaps, the similar-sounding wishful. Wistly, in turn, may have come from whistly, an old term meaning “silently” or “quietly.” What’s more certain is that our modern wistful is a great word to describe someone full of pensive yearning, or something inspiring such yearning.
Examples of wistful in a Sentence
William Pesek, Forbes.com, 5 June 2025
But there’s also something wistful about it, as if its characters had glimpsed a possibility of freedom, unity, and happiness that, nearly 100 years later, is still out of reach.
—Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 4 June 2025
The wistful cover makes the case for focusing more on the ballad and less on the power, aspect associated with the passionate love song.
—Marina Watts, People.com, 30 May 2025
Over the course of their wistful and chaotic journey into the big city (a two-hour drive from Ibadan that becomes an odyssey unto itself, thanks to Nigeria’s petrol shortage), the boys will come to see their father in a brilliant new light — one that will light up their dreams for decades to come.
—David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 18 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for wistful
Cite this Entry
“Wistful.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wistful. Accessed 12 Jun. 2025.
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