Link Centre Dictionary

wistful

wist·ful

UK/ˈwɪstfəl/ US/ˈwɪstfʌl/ rare

adjective

1.

full of longing or unfulfilled desire

  • “those wistful little ads that the lovelorn place in the classifieds”
Synonyms
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2.

showing pensive sadness

  • “the sensitive and wistful response of a poet to the gentler phases of beauty”
Synonyms
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Origin

Presumably from *whistful, from whist (“silent”) + -ful, based on older wistly. It is implausible that it derives from wishful, the required sound change being wishful → *wisful → wistful, which could not occur in Modern English, particularly not with wishful continuing in use. However, the sense of “longing” appears to be influenced by wishful, making wistful an ambiguous poetic word.

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.