rueful

rueful

adjective

Definition of RUEFUL

1

expressing or suggesting mourning <the rueful faces of friends and family who had gathered to pay their last respects>

Synonyms aching, agonized, anguished, bemoaning, bewailing, bitter, deploring, doleful, dolesome, dolorous, funeral, grieving, heartbroken, lamentable, lugubrious, plaintive, plangent, regretful, rueful, sorrowful, sorry, wailing, weeping, woeful

Related Words dirgelike, elegiac (also elegiacal), melancholy; dejected, depressed, despondent, disconsolate, dispirited, downcast, downhearted, heartsick, heartsore, inconsolable, tearful; brokenhearted, careworn, crestfallen, downcast, downhearted, forlorn, gloomy, glum, low-spirited, miserable, sad, triste, unhappy, woebegone; bawling, crying, groaning, howling, keening, moaning, yammering; bleeding, suffering; black, bleak, cheerless, comfortless, dark, darkening, desolate, dismal, dreary, funereal, gloomy, glum, gray (also grey), joyless, low, miserable, moody, morbid, morose, pathetic, pessimistic, piteous, saturnine, somber (or sombre), sullen, wretched

Near Antonyms delighted, exulting, glorying, happy, joyful, rejoicing, triumphant; bright, cheerful, cheering, cheery; laughing, smiling; blissful, blithe, blithesome, buoyant, jocund, jolly, joyous, lighthearted, merry, mirthful; encouraging, hopeful, optimistic; ecstatic, elated, euphoric, exhilarated, giddy, heady, rapturous, rhapsodic (also rhapsodical)

2

feeling sorrow for a wrong that one has done <a rueful youth who had come to ask for forgiveness for online bullying>

Synonyms apologetic, compunctious, penitent, regretful, remorseful, repentant, rueful, sorry

Related Words ashamed, shamefaced, sheepish; dolorous, grieving, lugubrious, mournful, plaintive, sorrowful, wailing, weeping, woeful

Near Antonyms compassionless, cruel, merciless, pitiless, ruthless, unmerciful; shameless, unashamed

Antonyms impenitent, remorseless, unapologetic, unrepentant

3

deserving of one's pity <the rueful, desperate poverty of people in parts of the Third World>

Synonyms heartbreaking, heartrending, miserable, piteous, pitiable, pitiful, poor, rueful, sorry, wretched

Related Words deplorable, lamentable, regrettable; emotional, impressive, inspiring; affecting, moving, poignant, stirring, touching; awful, horrible, terrible; distressing, disturbing, upsetting; grievous, mournful, sad, sorrowful, woeful

Near Antonyms unimpressive, uninspiring