Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use mournful in a sentence

15 example sentences · adjective

Mournful means filled with grief or sadness; being in a state in which one mourns. Example: “They heard a noise of mournful mewing, and looked down at the cats in the river below.”

More sentences with mournful

  • They heard a noise of mournful mewing, and looked down at the cats in the river below.2013, Harley White, The Autobiography of a Granada Cat, page 47. From the entry mewer
  • This mournful melody from Queensland tells of the woes and misfortunes of early canecutters.1964, Favourite Australian Bush Songs, page 137. From the entry canecutter
  • The wind through the trees made a mournful noise, like some great giant sighing.1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 148. From the entry shrewishness
  • Tom Slater made a congratulatory speech—in reality, a mournful adjuration to avoid the pitfalls of matrimonial inharmony.1912, Rex Ellingwood Beach, chapter 22, in The Iron Trail: An Alaskan Romance. From the entry inharmony
  • Oh, a Francois' leaf monkey, about 2 years old, was looking at him sadly and giving a mournful wail.2015, Kekang He, New Theory of Children’s Thinking Development, →ISBN. From the entry leaf monkey
  • The mournful melisma accompanied the slow procession to the palace built by Herod the Great, at present untenanted.1985, Anthony Burgess, Kingdom of the Wicked. From the entry melisma
  • Twin dimples of the crescentic type came down her tanned cheeks on the sides of her mournful mouth.1972, Vladimir Nabokov, Transparent Things, McGraw-Hill, published 1972, page 25. From the entry crescentic
  • It was startling but mournful, a loud "hoo-hoo" that seemed a part of the night and the forest.1940, Kathrene Sutherland, Gedney Pinkerton, Adventure North, page 47. From the entry hoo-hoo
  • “She always performs really well,” she says, showing me TikToks of her lip-syncing next to Luna, an elderly, noble-looking piebald with mournful brown eyes.2026 May 28, Amelia Gentleman, “The strange surveilled life of Piper Rockelle: why did a former child influencer decide to go on…. From the entry piebald
  • WISPS of mournful tunes from a cane flute mingled with the plucking, jangling arabesques of the zitherlike qanun, the oud and gentle drums.2009 June 21, Daniel J. Wakin, “Ensemble Ambitions in a World Divided”, in New York Times. From the entry qanun
  • No nest was to be seen, no parent birds hovered overhead, and little Robin could only tell its troubles in that mournful “Queek, queek, queek!”2002?, James Marten, The Boy of Chancellorville and Other Civil War Stories (page 67). From the entry queek
  • There are four flutes, a harp of twenty strings, a mournful shawm, and a number of drums of oxhide, some to be struck, others spanked.1985 September 1, Anthony Burgess, The Kingdom of the Wicked, London: Hutchinson & Co., →ISBN. From the entry shawm
  • In the interest of self-preservation invoke spirit of Paul Revere to awaken Americans in these mournful times against soft-headed thinking and pink-tea diplomacy.1950 July 26, George W[ilson] Malone, quoting Robert H. Raring, “Statement of the Honorable George W. Malone, United States Senator from…. From the entry pink tea
  • Souls have grown seers, and thought outbrings The mournful many-sidedness of things With foes as friends, enfeebling ires And fury-fires by gaingiving!1914, Louis Freeland Post, Alice Thacher Post, Stoughton Cooley, The Public: A journal of democracy: Volume 17. From the entry outbring
  • She closed her eyes and chanted in Old Elvish, the sounds harsh to the modern ear, but in Eorla’s voice, it sounded both soft and mournful.2010 January 26, Mark Del Franco, Unperfect Souls, Penguin, →ISBN, page 261. From the entry Old Elvish

Meaning of mournful

  1. adjective Filled with grief or sadness; being in a state in which one mourns.
  2. adjective Fit to inspire mourning; tragic.

Full definition of mournful

Questions about mournful in a sentence

How do you use mournful in a sentence?
Mournful is used as an adjective. For example: “They heard a noise of mournful mewing, and looked down at the cats in the river below.”
What is a short sentence with mournful?
“The wind through the trees made a mournful noise, like some great giant sighing.”
What does mournful mean?
Mournful means filled with grief or sadness; being in a state in which one mourns.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mournful (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use mournful in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/mournful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.