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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
Michael Saponara, Billboard, 28 Mar. 2025
Netflix released the first look of the movie last November — a still of a wistful yet determined-looking Keoghan driving a truck toward a brick building.
—Ryan Coleman, EW.com, 10 Mar. 2025
Once, at a fund-raising party in San Francisco, a woman approached Lilian with a wistful look.
—Yiyun Li, The New Yorker, 9 Mar. 2025
Despite their sometimes wistful tone, Lee’s stories aren’t about making the wrong choice, but about being denied any meaningful choice at all.
—Camille Bromley, New York Times, 17 Feb. 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 21 Apr. 2025.
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