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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
Will Leitch, Vulture, 3 Mar. 2025
Gone are the long, wistful and moody songs of the past.
—Britt Julious, Chicago Tribune, 23 Feb. 2025
Along with the visions of carpaccio dancing through my head, my enchanting spa day and thrilling hours on the mountain have occupied wistful daydreams since my journey to Colorado.
—Lydia Price, Travel + Leisure, 22 Feb. 2025
Faithful stares at her younger image with a hint of wistful pride.
—Debra Rae Cohen, Rolling Stone, 10 Feb. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Wistful.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wistful. Accessed 9 Mar. 2025.
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