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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
Leslie Felperin, HollywoodReporter, 23 Sep. 2025
With Vogue First, Vogue Shopping readers get exclusive access to shop the new collaboration before anyone else for 24 hours, which features structured jackets, regenerative wool knits, printed semi-sheer blouses, and more wistful pieces made from scratch.
—Cortne Bonilla, Vogue, 21 Sep. 2025
There’s something searching and wistful about it.
—Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 19 Sep. 2025
One wistful way to follow Redford’s career is to trace the paths not taken, and to set them beside the adventurous ones pursued by his contemporaries and forbears.
—Anthony Lane, New Yorker, 18 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for wistful
Cite this Entry
“Wistful.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wistful. Accessed 30 Sep. 2025.
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