rueful

1 expressing or suggesting mourning the rueful faces of friends and family who had gathered to pay their last respects Synonyms of rueful aching, agonized, anguished, bemoaning, bewailing, bitter, deploring, doleful, dolesome, dolorous, funeral, grieving, heartbroken, lamentable, lugubrious, plaintive, plangent, regretful, mournful, sorrowful, sorry, wailing, weeping, woefulWords Related to rueful 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 of rueful 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 of rueful apologetic, compunctious, penitent, regretful, remorseful, repentant, contrite, sorryWords Related to rueful ashamed, shamefaced, sheepish; dolorous, grieving, lugubrious, mournful, plaintive, sorrowful, wailing, weeping, woefulNear Antonyms of rueful compassionless, cruel, merciless, pitiless, ruthless, unmerciful; shameless, unashamedAntonyms of rueful impenitent, remorseless, unapologetic, unrepentant

3 deserving of one's pity the rueful, desperate poverty of people in parts of the Third World Synonyms of rueful heartbreaking, heartrending, miserable, piteous, pitiable, pitiful, poor, pathetic, sorry, wretchedWords Related to rueful deplorable, lamentable, regrettable; emotional, impressive, inspiring; affecting, moving, poignant, stirring, touching; awful, horrible, terrible; distressing, disturbing, upsetting; grievous, mournful, sad, sorrowful, woefulNear Antonyms of rueful unimpressive, uninspiring