rueful

adjective

rue·ful ˈrü-fəl

: exciting pity or sympathy : pitiable

rueful squalid poverty … by every wayside

John Morley

: mournful, regretful

troubled her with a rueful disquiet

W. M. Thackeray

ruefully

ˈrü-fə-lē

adverb

ruefulness noun

Example Sentences

He gave me a rueful smile and apologized. the rueful faces of friends and family who had gathered to pay their last respects

Recent Examples on the Web Reflecting on a career spent making movies and plays that have featured exploding cats, surprise decapitations, and other inventive acts of destruction, Martin McDonagh let out a rueful laugh.

David Sims, The Atlantic, 22 Oct. 2022 Two losses by a total of five points might result in some rueful memories once the season is over, but South Alabama is still putting together its best-ever fall of football.

Creg Stephenson | Cstephenson@al.com, al, 6 Nov. 2022 There are more abstract conflicts, as well, expressed by the two wise-rueful, sad-merry uncles, Doaker and Wining Boy (a tremendous Michael Potts).

Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 14 Oct. 2022 Despite the abundance of other projects, this polished but informal program (unobtrusively directed by Lonny Price) of personal anecdotes, private memories and rueful reflections on his life seems special.

Marilyn Stasio, Variety, 27 Oct. 2022 Her ascension marks a recognition that memoir, in all its many faces and poses—direct, self-critical, rueful and comic, engagé and not—is perhaps the leading genre of our time, as much as the novel was for the first half of the twentieth century.

Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2022 It’s not easy to make Brian Kemp laugh, but at the mention of Donald Trump, the governor of Georgia lets out a rueful chuckle.

Time, 7 Oct. 2022 Game of Thrones had a rueful sense of humor to go along with its violence and mind games, and highly quotable characters like Tyrion and Cersei.

Larisha Paul, Rolling Stone, 26 Aug. 2022 Godard adds the Beethoven and other elements of high art to stand outside his protagonists’ media immersion and subject it to a stringent and rueful moral analysis.

Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 16 Sep. 2022 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'rueful.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.