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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. The word wistful comes from wistly, a now-obsolete word meaning "intently," and the similar-sounding wishful. Wistly, in turn, likely comes from whist, an old term meaning "silent." 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
Jon Krawczynski, New York Times, 11 May 2026
And Beecher was wistful for a Colonial New England past when wives ran households with a clocklike efficiency.
—Literary Hub, 4 May 2026
As the quartet builds toward a post-rock crescendo and a wistful, snowcapped outro that’s lightly accompanied by the sound of children on a playground, Kinsella and his bandmates spin the narrative in a kaleidoscopic language all their own.
—Sam Sodomsky, Pitchfork, 4 May 2026
Bieberchella, as it’s been called, was wistful, intriguing, and soon quite controversial.
—Vinson Cunningham, New Yorker, 18 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for wistful
Cite this Entry
“Wistful.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wistful. Accessed 13 May. 2026.
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