wistful

CEFRB2

/ˈwɪstfəl/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    Thinking sadly about something you want but cannot have.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Extra detail

    Sad and thoughtful.

Examples

  • He has a wistful look on his face.

  • Her wistful smile belied the sadness she felt at having to leave.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
3
Parts of speech
1
Citations
2
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meaning

  1. Full of longing or yearning.

More examples

In context

  • His eyes grew wistful as he recalled his university days.

  • Her grey eyes, looking out on the violet of the night sky, the trees, and the crowd of hilarious onlookers who had not been invited to Buckingham Palace, had a patient and wistful expression.

  • There are few sights that leave a railway lover more wistful than a desolate railway viaduct no longer carrying tracks. As with tunnels, so much effort was made to conquer the landscape, yet so many now stand forlorn.

Synonyms

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He stared with a blank expression at the old toy from his childhood.

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Nearby

Origin

adjective

Presumably from *whistful, from whist (“silent”) + -ful, based on older wistly. It is implausible that it derives from wishful, the required sound change being wishful → *wisful → wistful, which could not occur in Modern English, particularly not with wishful continuing in use. However, the sense of “longing” appears to be influenced by wishful, making wistful an ambiguous poetic word.