Word of the Day

: May 19, 2011

wistful

adjective WIST-ful

What It Means

1 : full of yearning or desire tinged with melancholy; also : inspiring such yearning

2 : musingly sad : pensive

wistful in Context

Dan's gaze was wistful as he watched the movers load the furniture into the truck and thought of all the good times he'd had in the house.

"'So,' said Wood, at long last, jerking Harry from a wistful fantasy about what he could be eating for breakfast at this very moment up at the castle." -- From J. K. Rowling's 1999 book Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Did You Know?

Are you yearning to know the history of "wistful"? If so, we can ease your melancholy a little by telling you that "wistful" comes from a combination of "wishful" and "wistly," a now obsolete word meaning "intently." We can't say with certainty where "wistly" came from, but it may have sprung from "whistly," an old term meaning "silently" or "quietly." How did the supposed transition from a word meaning "quietly" to one meaning "intently" come about? That's something to muse about, but the answer isn't known.