rueful

adjective

rue·​ful ˈrü-fəl 

1

: exciting pity or sympathy : pitiable

… rueful squalid poverty … by every wayside …

—John Morley

2

: mournful, regretful

… troubled her with a rueful disquiet.

—William Thackeray

ruefully

ˈrü-fə-lē 

adverb

ruefulness noun

Synonyms of rueful

• mournful
• weeping
• heartbroken
• funeral
• bitter
• melancholy

Examples of rueful in a Sentence

He gave me a rueful smile and apologized.

the rueful faces of friends and family who had gathered to pay their last respects

Recent Examples on the Web

From the sidelines, an indefatigably kind and patient nurse (Fisayo Akinade) observes these fractious family dynamics with a rueful twinkle, gently counseling the dying matriarch as to how to bring her brood back together. —Guy Lodge, Variety, 11 Dec. 2025

Wyle’s face — rueful, furious, gentle, world weary — looks like this year has felt. —Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 1 Dec. 2025

But most of Guy’s stories are told with the rueful smile of a man who knows his days of being underappreciated and underpaid are behind him. —David Browne, Rolling Stone, 30 Nov. 2025

That was one last flourish of self-laceration, and there is definitely a matching strain of masochism in Hopkins—not so much a relish of suffering as a rueful acknowledgment that earthly woe is our due. —Literary Hub, 6 Nov. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

13th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

rueful

adjective

rue·​ful ˈrü-fəl 

1

: exciting pity or sympathy

2

: mournful sense 1, regretful

ruefully

-fə-lē 

adverb