Word.ws English Dictionary

ruefully

ruefully adverb: in a rueful manner; causing, feeling, or expressing regret or sorrow.

Adverb

ruefully (comparative more ruefully, superlative most ruefully)

  1. In a rueful manner; causing, feeling, or expressing regret or sorrow.
    • He smiled ruefully at me.
    • He pushed his straw hat back, scratched his head, and laughed ruefully.

Examples of ruefully in a sentence

  • "Nobody would bother peeking these days," she said ruefully, "in bathing suits or in the skinny."
  • “If you don't speak Japanese well,” one sansei said ruefully, “it's better to he white.”
  • The American Bar Association ruefully admits that the legal profession is overcrowded, especially in large cities.

All 15 example sentences with ruefully

Synonyms of ruefully

All synonyms of ruefully

Forms of ruefully

comparativemore ruefully
superlativemost ruefully

Origin of ruefully

From rueful + -ly.

Words formed from ruefully

Questions about ruefully

What does ruefully mean?
Ruefully means in a rueful manner; causing, feeling, or expressing regret or sorrow.
What part of speech is ruefully?
Ruefully is an adverb.

Words near ruefully in the dictionary

  1. Ruedi-Allgower classification
  2. Rueff
  3. Rueffs
  4. rueful
  5. ruefull
  6. ruefully
  7. ruefulness
  8. ruefulnesses
  9. Rueger
  10. Ruegers
  11. Ruegg

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ruefully (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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