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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
Maggie Horton, PEOPLE, 27 Nov. 2025
When the show’s creators zero in on those feelings, something a lot more specific and wistful than a love story between two strangers, the piece comes alive.
—Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 20 Nov. 2025
But Leonora meets a serious rival in Ned, a glittering, young gay American who counters Leonora’s wistful Victoriana with a modern flat replete with shag rug—and a large bed covered in mauve velvet.
—Literary Hub, 17 Nov. 2025
Harrison receives a sizable share of screen time and is uncharacteristically wistful.
—Kim Willis, USA Today, 17 Nov. 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 29 Nov. 2025.
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