Meaning & use
wistfully
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Meaning
adverbnot comparableliterary
In a quietly sad way, with a gentle longing for something lost or out of reach.
Grammar: Often goes with verbs of looking, smiling or sighing: sigh wistfully.
Patterns
- look wistfully at something
- smile wistfully
She gazed wistfully at the old photographs.
He smiled wistfully when he heard the song.
The children watched wistfully as the ice-cream van drove away.
Common combinations
- smile wistfully
- He smiled wistfully at the memory.
- sigh wistfully
- She sighed wistfully and looked out of the window.
- look wistfully
- The dog looked wistfully at the open gate.
- remember wistfully
- They remembered the old days wistfully.
- say wistfully
- I wish I could go, she said wistfully.
Synonyms and how they differ
- longingly
- Longingly stresses the strong desire for something, while wistfully adds a quiet sadness that accepts it may not return.
- nostalgically
- Nostalgically is tied to remembering the past, whereas wistfully can also be about a present wish.
- yearningly
- Yearningly is more intense and emotional than the soft feeling wistfully conveys.
- sadly
- Sadly is a general word for unhappiness without the hint of longing and fondness that wistfully carries.
Opposites
Word family
- wistful adjective
- feeling gentle sadness and longing
- wistfulness noun
- the quality of being wistful
- wist verb
- an archaic past form of wit, to know (rare)
Commonly confused: wistfully or wishfully?
wistfully vs wishfully
Wishfully relates to hoping something will happen, as in wishful thinking, while wistfully relates to gentle sadness about what is gone.
Practice
The old man looked ___ at the playground, remembering his own childhood games.
Choose one answer.
Wistfully fits quiet longing for the past. Angrily and eagerly show other moods, and suddenly says nothing about feeling.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “wistfully”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.