wistful

Meaning

Adjective

• Full of longing or yearning.
• Sad and thoughtful.

Origin

• Presumably from *whistful, from whist + -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, with wistful being an ambiguous poetic word.