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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
Siddhant Adlakha, Variety, 8 Sep. 2024
The former is a wistful, contemplative song about the way the heaviest moments in life — good or bad — always take you by surprise, while title track is an ode to Kent’s own stubbornness.
—Josh Crutchmer, Rolling Stone, 6 Sep. 2024
The monologue is pure Tony Soprano, wistful for an idealized past when a violent criminal could still be a pillar of the community.
—Judy Berman, TIME, 19 Sep. 2024
The bandt’s latest offering is starry-eyed, wistful, and weightless.
—Margaret Farrell, SPIN, 4 Sep. 2024
See all Example Sentences for wistful 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'wistful.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Wistful.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wistful. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.
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