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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
Ben Rosenstock, Vulture, 11 Nov. 2024
The Home for Retired Bears, benignly administered by the musical nuns, resembles an island gentlemen’s club in early Bond movies: think cane furniture, the wistful whiff of Empire and a faintly sinister air.
—Stephanie Bunbury, Deadline, 4 Nov. 2024
There’s something searching and wistful about this movie; it couldn’t have been made by a young person.
—Stephanie Zacharek, TIME, 1 Nov. 2024
Neither damning nor satiric, W. is oddly wistful, almost regretful — rare sentiments in a Stone film.
—Will Leitch, Vulture, 13 Oct. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Wistful.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wistful. Accessed 28 Nov. 2024.
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