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wistful
in a sentence

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • Chase slipped the harmonica from his pocket and, pressing it along his lips, played the wistful tune "Molly Malone."†   (source)
  • Her porcelain face looked wistfully at Esperanza with enormous eyes.†   (source)
  • "So," said Wood, at long last, jerking Harry from a wistful fantasy about what he could be eating for breakfast at this very moment up at the castle.†   (source)
  • Still," she murmured wistfully, "I sho' wish he could've stayed…."†   (source)
  • They'd go sailing by moonlight in his little yacht, the Water Nixie, named by Adelia — another of her wistful Gothicisms.†   (source)
  • The man's voice took on a wistful note.†   (source)
  • She sounds almost wistful.†   (source)
  • Then he offered a wistful smile.†   (source)
  • He smiled wistfully as he imagined Paul's amazement.†   (source)
  • "It sounds," she said, wistfully, "like someone else's summer."†   (source)
  • "She looks really pretty," Marlee commented wistfully.†   (source)
  • There was nothing wistful in the way he said this.†   (source)
  • "And I could have a large inventing studio," Violet said wistfully.†   (source)
  • Mariam knew the story from Nana herself, and, though Nana dismissed the episode, Mariam could tell by the wistful light in her eyes that she had been happy.†   (source)
  • And then a faint wistfulness.†   (source)
  • She stared wistfully through the grate a moment, then looked up at Reynie as if surprised to see him still standing there.†   (source)
  • He shook his head with a wistful sadness.†   (source)
  • "I suppose we'll have another Christmas without Jim's lovely party," she said in a wistful voice.†   (source)
  • He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.†   (source)
  • Hairwoman tells us they canceled school for a whole week back in the seventies because of the energy crisis. ... She looks wistful.†   (source)
  • Otis, Quigly, and Esther didn't enter into Alyss' tales of Wonderland as fully as the younger orphans, but they enjoyed her stories enough to listen to them in wistful silence.†   (source)
  • "I thought the neighborhood looked more prosperous," he said wistfully.†   (source)
  • She shook her head, wistful for a moment.†   (source)
  • Kit greeted her wistfully.†   (source)
  • "I even noticed that kind of intellectual energy in the year and a half I was in college," he said, almost wistfully.†   (source)
  • When he was gone, Dany went to her window and looked out wistfully on the waters of the bay.†   (source)
  • Wes is amazing, a true auteur involved in every aspect of production, with a trademark style recognizable in any frame wistful and quirky, deadpan and dark.†   (source)
  • " "It's too bad we can't go somewhere," I say wistfully.†   (source)
  • Young people began disappearing in pairs after a while, and some of the older ones stopped their eating or drinking or singing or talking long enough to give them looks of disapproval—or more understanding wistful looks.†   (source)
  • Another wistful look came into his tired old eyes.†   (source)
  • Andy's palpable hunger for climbing, his unalloyed enthusiasm for the mountains, made me wistful for the period in my own life when climbing was the most important thing imaginable, when I charted the course of my existence in terms of mountains I'd ascended and those I hoped one day to ascend.†   (source)
  • He looked almost wistful.†   (source)
  • He looked wistfully at where the mountain peaks were now concealed by clouds.†   (source)
  • The old fire was seeping back into this strange, wistful husk of my father.†   (source)
  • "But…we're very fond of our things," said one of the ladies wistfully.†   (source)
  • "Look at us, so young," Auntie Gal sighed wistfully.†   (source)
  • Then he smiled at me wistfully and went to sit by a girl with braces and a bad perm.†   (source)
  • She was in cutoff jeans and a tank top, attracting the wistful stares of Robert, the depressive, and Alan, who had a little problem with fires, who were playing Parcheesi a few tables over.†   (source)
  • Lilies upon the surface, deep below Two wistful faces craving each for each, Resolute and reluctant without speech:— A sudden ripple made the faces flow, One moment joined, to vanish out of reach: So those hearts joined, and ah were parted so.†   (source)
  • At home, after the shuttle, after a Jell-O shot someone gave her on board, after listening to the shuttle driver talk wistfully about his family, his twins, his wife, who had gout, Mae couldn't sleep.†   (source)
  • She was sitting at the window, looking out, a forlorn figure, wistful.†   (source)
  • "I was to Holland once," he said, voice wistful with recollection.†   (source)
  • Some carried themselves with a sort of wistful resignation, others with pride or stiff soldierly discipline or good humor or macho zeal.†   (source)
  • It was a smile which was both radiant and strangely wistful.†   (source)
  • "Call me a throwback," he says, a wistful glint in his eye, "but when I see a teenage butt on a thirty-six-year-old woman, well, I just have to attend to it.†   (source)
  • "Wouldn't it be nice to be that free?" she'd asked Bella wistfully.†   (source)
  • The air was a reverie of wistful summer things, the last languorous day, a chance to go barelimbed once more, smell the mown clover.†   (source)
  • Solomon smiled wistfully.†   (source)
  • She saw his face soften, the wistful curve of his mouth, as if he were looking at someone he loved.†   (source)
  • He doesn't seem to notice, there's a note of wistfulness in his voice.†   (source)
  • Abenthy's voice grew vaguely wistful.†   (source)
  • She sighed wistfully.†   (source)
  • "Lots of space in Montana," DeWeese says, a little wistfully.†   (source)
  • Now Mrs. Tomolillo was sitting with her index linger on her cheek and her thumb under her chin, and her head tilted wistfully to one side.†   (source)
  • He just jotted some minor edits on the printout, handed it back to Saeed with a wistful smile, and said, "Send it out."†   (source)
  • The Chairman, who was gazing wistfully at the ornament in its box on the table, moved his lips, but no sound came out at first, until he cleared his throat and then said, with a strange sort of sadness, "Why, Nobu-san, I had no idea you were so sentimental."†   (source)
  • Cal heard the wistfulness.†   (source)
  • There was a sad, wistful look on her face, and I knew who she was missing.†   (source)
  • Petty crimes embarrass the community and many people wistfully wonder why Negroes don't rob more banks, embezzle more funds and employ graft in the unions.†   (source)
  • For a moment, Fezzik felt almost wistful.†   (source)
  • Then, as though veiled in a private grief, the lawyer wistfully said, "And even after all of that you did nothing to discourage him?"†   (source)
  • She looks at me and smiles wistfully.†   (source)
  • With a bright, forced, wistful smile.†   (source)
  • As he deposited his coin and rolled past he remarked wistfully, "I do hope this is an interesting game, otherwise the afternoon will he so terribly dull."†   (source)
  • When asked why she chose the shingaling as the main theme of her dance, Echevarri grows wistful.†   (source)
  • The Acutes grumbled and griped at him and his towel, and the Chronics woke up to look around with beads blue from lack of blood cut off by sheets tied too tight across the chest, looking around the dorm till they finally centered on me with weak and watered-down old looks, faces wistful and curious.†   (source)
  • I gesture to the trash can, and Becca casts a wistful look in that direction.†   (source)
  • I'm mighty glad to give 'em to yo' little gal. I only wisht," she said wistfully, "that hit was a boy.†   (source)
  • Sadako liked the wooden doll's wistful smile and the red roses painted on its kimono.†   (source)
  • One shop near the corner sold only earrings, and I watched wistfully as it went by.†   (source)
  • "If them bandits were to come, maybe the Captain would let me start wearing a gun," Newt said wistfully.†   (source)
  • Three years later a wistful bugle cry carried over the empty track at Santa Anita, and sixteen thousand people gathered by the paddock to witness the unveiling of the George Woolf memorial statue.†   (source)
  • His denials, accompanied by a wistful smile which she interpreted as a sly one, only aggravated her suspicions.†   (source)
  • The way the desert smells and the long, wistful sigh of wind rushing down from the mountains as the sun dips beneath the horizon.†   (source)
  • Before locking up the shop that evening, she placed it in the window, a little wistful about having to part with it.†   (source)
  • Sam sat in the bows, clutching the sides, and looking back wistfully to the shore.†   (source)
  • Bert took a breath before replying, his expression more wistful than remorseful.†   (source)
  • My mother's face is childlike and wistful.†   (source)
  • Claire stole a wing from our bowl and wistfully shook her head.†   (source)
  • But then the vampire smiled almost wistfully, and the smooth white substance of his face moved with the infinitely flexible but minimal lines of a cartoon.†   (source)
  • They were all gone, and he walked right out and moved in wistful dejection through the dark, emptying streets.†   (source)
  • Aunt quickly shooed us to the door before my mother could change her mind, while Elder Sister and her sworn sisters stared after us wistfully.†   (source)
  • She looked wistful.†   (source)
  • You're right, said Tereza wistfully.†   (source)
  • There is a colorful series of pictures from Hong Kong, Thailand, and other exotic places, which would usually have me thinking wistfully about going on holiday.†   (source)
  • His voice had a strange, almost wistful quality to it.†   (source)
  • "Come on," I said, taking her arm quite firmly, pulling her along as she sighed, her wistful face turned toward me.†   (source)
  • "The curried lamb," he said, wistfully.†   (source)
  • If nothing else, it was something to think about, and he thought wistfully of the younger days, when he had both feet, and before.†   (source)
  • Yet on departure from the First Congress inlate October of 1774, after a stay of two months, he had written wistfully of the "happy, peaceful, the elegant, the hospitable, and polite city of Philadelphia," wondering if he would ever be back.†   (source)
  • If a beast can be said to have an expression such as wistfulness, then that was how Anteros looked to me.†   (source)
  • But later, beneath it, he'd thought he glimpsed something more wistful.†   (source)
  • Sophie used to sit on one of the large, flat stones that shelved into the water, and watch me wistfully.†   (source)
  • "I'll bet it's cool down there," said Connor wistfully.†   (source)
  • "Well I lost some in '60, so I suppose I'll lose some in, uh, maybe more in '64," Kennedy smiles wistfully, forced to reveal a painful political weakness.†   (source)
  • His wistful eyes, his lost, helpless, appealing smile served as substitute for the shell.†   (source)
  • And you'll be living at Anvard now," said Aravis rather wistfully.†   (source)
  • What Granny had also said, so wistful, was how she used to dream of going to New York with Grandpa, but he never saw why she wanted to.†   (source)
  • He took one more wistful look around, then turned to face me.†   (source)
  • "To the tower," Pippa says, smiling wistfully.†   (source)
  • He was genuinely grateful and relieved, and he bowed almost wistfully before me, making me feel as though I had indeed come to his aid, that I had helped save him from whatever fate he supposed would befall him were he to visit the ones delivered for our final solace and pleasure.†   (source)
  • Those vague and wistful occupations faded out of the picture after that December afternoon.†   (source)
  • "It's served us so well," she said wistfully.†   (source)
  • She shimmied off, leaving Feeney gazing wistfully after her.†   (source)
  • The spy thought hopefully, wistfully: if it's Stuart I can ask for an armed escort all the way home.†   (source)
  • He smiled wistfully.†   (source)
  • "I wish that I could have a drink," Mike answered wistfully, "as I have wondered about the subjective effect of ethanol on the human nervous system—I conjecture that it must be similar to a slight overvoltage.†   (source)
  • At this, she would give a wistful smile.†   (source)
  • I wish you'd get married," Mrs. Glass said, abruptly, wistfully.†   (source)
  • Conscientious to a fault, thoughtful of others, and affectionate within reasonable bounds, he was the kind of father whose idealized image appears in many wistful books of human family reminiscences, but whose real prototype has seldom paced the earth upon two legs.†   (source)
  • "Typical American no-good," Ralph would say; Theresa, "typical American don't-know-how-to-get-along"; and Helen, wistfully, "typical American just-want-to-be-the-center-of-things."†   (source)
  • White man's metal would be rust; White man's stone work would be low hills and small caves; White man's murders would be wistful, beautiful notes in the song of the redbird--for the redbird remembered everything, turning it into goodness when it could.†   (source)
  • GUIL (at the last moment before they enter-wistfully): I'm sorry it wasn't a unicorn.†   (source)
  • The advent of the Second World War and my involvement in it had caused Maria to fade out of my life, but she had been many times since in my wistful thoughts.†   (source)
  • KATE [ALMOST WISTFUL]: How—serene she is.†   (source)
  • The man had a kind of gray wistful twinkle in his eyes as though he remembered humor when it was not against the law, so that I dared go out on a limb.†   (source)
  • Her face grew slightly wistful, the cheeks smoothing.†   (source)
  • I would nearly embrace the stove in gratitude for its warmth, while Ted would discourse rather wistfully about the last time in his memory the edge of the river froze solid.†   (source)
  • He, too, had mistaken me for an Arab, and when we crossed he had dropped the burdened-down expression and given me a look of wistful inquisitiveness, like a puppy that wanted to play but had just been made to understand that it wasn't playtime.†   (source)
  • I'd like to catch one fish," the girl said a little wistfully.†   (source)
  • Only once she asked a little wistfully how frequently I would be able to visit her, and, although I knew such trips would have to be very rare since her future home lay some ten villages away, I assured her not a year would pass without my going to see her two or three times.†   (source)
  • She and the wistful round man still clasped hands through the window and continued to shine in the face like lighthouses smiling.†   (source)
  • (Again this is not a moral dictum; it is said rather wistfully, as o f something he is beginning to doubt) WOLSEY (After a pause, rather gently) I believe you believe that.†   (source)
  • White Fang gazed at him wistfully.   (source)
  • His familiar husky voice sent a wave of wistfulness through me.†   (source)
  • "Down at the forges," Jake said wistfully.†   (source)
  • He looked wistfully out the second-floor window at the rolling hills covered in snow.†   (source)
  • "I wish the king would grow a beard," Natalie said wistfully.†   (source)
  • Dum-bledore was smiling wistfully out of the front cover of a glossy book.†   (source)
  • "Ammit the Devourer," Thoth said wistfully.†   (source)
  • Wistfully, she says, "I wish I'd been in love more than once.†   (source)
  • The actress watched them retire a little wistfully.†   (source)
  • If I were not the blood of the dragon, she thought wistfully, this could be my home.†   (source)
  • I doubt you'll be lonely, down there," I said a little wistfully, because .†   (source)
  • You don't have to leave," I said wistfully.†   (source)
  • I'd like to know mine," Eragon said wistfully.†   (source)
  • There was that urban-dweller wistfulness in her voice.†   (source)
  • Now, he looked wistfully at the little silver box, the focus of so many of his thoughts.†   (source)
  • "The secret privileges!" said a girl wistfully.†   (source)
  • He grimaced and said wistfully, "It's what made me give up the good life on the road."†   (source)
  • You don't remember anything?" she said, a bit wistfully.†   (source)
  • Rosalie sighed, and when she spoke again her voice was different, the wistfulness gone.†   (source)
  • "Your mother is a queen among women," Poseidon said wistfully.†   (source)
  • I suppose it's too late to turn back," Grover said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "An adventure," Bran repeated wistfully.†   (source)
  • "I wish we could stay out in the country until then," she said wistfully.†   (source)
  • He smiled wistfully and released all of me but one hand.†   (source)
  • "An inn," Ser Rodrik repeated wistfully.†   (source)
  • Piper heard the wistfulness in his voice.†   (source)
  • "Yeah, we were something," she said, a touch of wistfulness entering her voice.†   (source)
  • "It's been wonderful," Travis Stoll said wistfully.†   (source)
  • I wish I'd lived there," Jake said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "I want to be a cheerleader," Nudge said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "I wish I had a good mean dog," said Arya wistfully.†   (source)
  • He stared wistfully at his departing friends.†   (source)
  • "It was just a wish," said Penny wistfully.†   (source)
  • No. Was that wistfulness she saw in the child's eyes?†   (source)
  • I suppose if you want to barge in there and gaze wistfully at her sleeping face, go right ahead.†   (source)
  • "Not directly," said the domovoi wistfully "But his senior emissaries, certainly."†   (source)
  • He held up his hand, pretending to hold one, and struck it wistfully with an imaginary wand.†   (source)
  • I would understand the song, he thought wistfully.†   (source)
  • Maybe it was the wistfulness in her mother's voice, mixed with regret.†   (source)
  • Kate detected a wistfulness in his voice.†   (source)
  • "A good man is hard to find," she said wistfully.†   (source)
  • 'It must be nice to live like a vegetable,' he conceded wistfully.†   (source)
  • "She reminds me of the young Billie Holiday," said Mr. Barry, wistfully.†   (source)
  • I don't blame you," she said; she looked at him with a tinge of wistfulness that was almost envy.†   (source)
  • "Had Stannis won, all might have been different," Ronel Rivers said wistfully.†   (source)
  • She stared at the box wistfully, as if she was waiting as long as she could to open it.†   (source)
  • I wistfully remembered this girl before she was born.†   (source)
  • But you could see the wistfulness in their faces.†   (source)
  • She looked over at Jace, and there was a sort of wistfulness in her expression.†   (source)
  • "Over forty years," he answered with a trace of wistfulness.†   (source)
  • Don't suppose you could do that," Armistead said wistfully.†   (source)
  • 'It must be a very wonderful thing to have,' she said, half wistfully.†   (source)
  • Tyrion had noticed that one gazing wistfully at Shae more than once.†   (source)
  • "My dad wanted to take me to Greece this summer," she said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "I can't," he finally said, with a note of wistfulness.†   (source)
  • Looking wistfully at the poster, he pondered the damaged words: Do I dare disturb the universe?†   (source)
  • "So much has changed," she said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "Those were happier days," mused the yam wistfully.†   (source)
  • Then he looked wistfully after the crowd.†   (source)
  • "Maybe we could just live with them," Nudge said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "I miss the food too," Kern said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "Your father is a great scholar," he said quietly, almost wistfully.†   (source)
  • I've always wanted to order that coin machine that sorts things automatically," he said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "You know," Doc said wistfully, "sometimes I do feel a little guilt."†   (source)
  • The man said it wistfully, cautiously, not quite convinced.†   (source)
  • "He was so young when he left," she said wistfully.†   (source)
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