How to use wistful in a sentence
14 example sentences · adjective
Wistful means full of longing or yearning. Example: “His eyes grew wistful as he recalled his university days.”
Examples of wistful by meaning
adjectiveFull of longing or yearning.
- His eyes grew wistful as he recalled his university days.
- Her grey eyes, looking out on the violet of the night sky, the trees, and the crowd of hilarious onlookers who had not been invited to Buckingham Palace, had a patient and wistful expression.1909 September 9, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], “A Court Ball”, in The Squire’s Daughter, New York, N.Y.: Dodd...
- There are few sights that leave a railway lover more wistful than a desolate railway viaduct no longer carrying tracks.2025 November 26, Tim Dunn, “Lost and found: historical assets”, in RAIL, number 1049, page 55
More sentences with wistful
- Tetzlaff played the wistful melodic phrases with arching lyricism and radiantly penetrating pianissimos, while in the orchestra Mr.2007 January 16, Anthony Tommasini, “Serious German Violinist Gets a Rock Star Ovation”, in The New York Times. From the entry timelessness
- Stravinsky's wistful and brutal “Rite of Spring” has become a rite de passage for choreographers attracted to its rhythmic intricacies.1977 April 5, Don McDonagh, “Ballet: Stravinsky ‘Rite of Spring’”, in The New York Times. From the entry rite de passage
- "Will you come over now and try on your dress?" Ally asked, looking at her with wistful admiration.1917, Edith Wharton, chapter XII, in Summer […], New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 178. From the entry ruck
- My compartment was full and included a young woman of Madonna-like face (Jesus’ mother, not the singer) and wistful eyes—a sorrowful, haunting, beauty.2008, James McGee, “Army Years, 1960-1964”, in A 20th Century Life: Travels Through the Years, Xlibris, →ISBN, page 226. From the entry madonna-like
- Eleven years ago, Arrested Development became one of Southern hip-hop's first crossover successes with “Tennessee,” a wistful, bohemian-influenced song about the scars of history.2003 September 21, Jon Caramanica, “Music: When Rap Sounds Anything but Urban”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 31…. From the entry one-hit wonder
- So she went her own way, growing wistful and more lonely, and every day her big eyes grew wiser and fuller of secrets.1907, Margaret Pollock Sherwood, Bruce Rogers, The Princess Pourquoi, Mifflin & Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 12. From the entry go one's own way
- There’s a note of wistful, wishful thinking in all this retconning of reality — would that we could write a time jump into our own scripts!2022 January 7, James Poniewozik, “Wondering When the Pandemic Will End? On TV, It Already Has.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry retcon
- There are moments at which you can feel the irresistible temptation to embellish and invent, to infuse reality with Chabonesque touches of wistful Jewish magic realism, being resisted.2016 November 18, A[nthony] O[liver] Scott, “Story After Story”, in Sunday Book Review, published 20 November, page 1; published online as…. From the entry Chabonesque
- In wistful instrumental stretches the song slides into an extended keyboard solo of unexpected (even for Womack & Womack) minimalism and economy, a slow jazzstep in zero gravity.2015 August 24, “The 200 Best Songs of the 1980s”, in Pitchfork, archived from the original on 15 Dec 2022. From the entry jazzstep
- In her hands, Rose seems at the show’s beginning more a garden-variety stage mother and actress manquée, a wistful but often affectionate nag, than Merman’s elemental force of nature.1998 September 21, Ben Brantley, “THEATER REVIEW; The Stripper’s Mother: Ambition Rampant and Ugly”, in The New York Times, section E…. From the entry manquée
- She looked as if she would be a plucky, tireless sportswoman; yet she had a wistful, tender huggableness that a girl ought not to lose, however well she plays tennis.1916, Rupert Hughes, The Thirteenth Commandment, A. L. Burt Company, page 16. From the entry huggableness
Meaning of wistful
- adjective Full of longing or yearning.
- adjective Sad and thoughtful.
Questions about wistful in a sentence
- How do you use wistful in a sentence?
- Wistful is used as an adjective. For example: “His eyes grew wistful as he recalled his university days.”
- What is a short sentence with wistful?
- “His eyes grew wistful as he recalled his university days.”
- What does wistful mean?
- Wistful means full of longing or yearning.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wistful (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 wistful in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/wistful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
