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, mournful, sorrowful, sorry, wailing, weeping, woefulRelated 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, wretchedNear 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, contrite, sorryRelated Words ashamed, shamefaced, sheepish; dolorous, grieving, lugubrious, mournful, plaintive, sorrowful, wailing, weeping, woefulNear Antonyms compassionless, cruel, merciless, pitiless, ruthless, unmerciful; shameless, unashamedAntonyms 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, pathetic, sorry, wretchedRelated Words deplorable, lamentable, regrettable; emotional, impressive, inspiring; affecting, moving, poignant, stirring, touching; awful, horrible, terrible; distressing, disturbing, upsetting; grievous, mournful, sad, sorrowful, woefulNear Antonyms unimpressive, uninspiring