repine
Americanverb (used without object)
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repines,
present (3rd person singular)
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repined,
past participle, past
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repining
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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repinesimple
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repinessimple
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have repinedperfect
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has repinedperfect
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am repiningprogressive
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are repiningprogressive
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is repiningprogressive
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have been repiningperfect progressive
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has been repiningperfect progressive
Past
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repinedsimple
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had repinedperfect
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was repiningprogressive
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were repiningprogressive
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had been repiningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of repine
Explanation
The verb repine describes expressing gloom or discontent. Brooding, fretful, and sad — these are the traits of people who repine at their circumstances in life. Early American poet Anne Bradstreet used repine in her well-known poem, "Upon the Burning of Our House July 10th 1666," describing how the speaker got over the loss: "And when I could no longer look, / I blest His grace that gave and took, / That laid my goods now in the dust. / Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just. / It was his own; it was not mine. / Far be it that I should repine."
Vocabulary lists containing repine
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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"A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift
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“A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
We are republishing Patterson’s repine in honor of the holiday.
From Slate ● Jul. 4, 2012
Must Man, the chiefest Work of Art Divine, Be doom'd in endless Discord to repine?
From Time Magazine Archive
But if no one agrees, the author need not repine.
From Time Magazine Archive
I will not pause either to accuse or repine.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
Yet why repine where so much is left?
From Ladies on Horseback Learning, Park-Riding, and Hunting, with Hints upon Costume, and Numerous Anecdotes by Nannie Lambert
The florist nurses a tulip, and repines that his rival's beds enjoy the same showers and sunshine with his own.
From The Works of Samuel Johnson, Volume 04 The Adventurer; The Idler by Samuel Johnson
Nature by bonds so slight to earth confines Her slender form, a breath may break its chains; And she, so much her heart the world disdains, Longer to tread life's wearying round repines.
From The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch by Thomas Campbell
This dame declines—a third repines, and fades, like the rest, away; Her lot she rues, whom a Rookwood woos—cursed is her Wedding Day!
From Rookwood by William Harrison Ainsworth
The second of these pieces has been brought with great skill into regular form by transposition: but again one repines to find several touches gone that once were there.
From Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti by Sir Hall Caine
O, my Fredy ! not selfish is the affliction that repines her earthly course of sorrow was allowed no shade!—that at the instant soft peace and consolation awaited her she should breathe her last!
From The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay — Volume 3 by Fanny Burney
When the crisis and the crash came that wrecked his fortune he went stoutly to work, and if he ever repined it was not known outside of the family and small circle of chosen friends.
From Blazing The Way True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget Sound by Emily Inez Denny
Not that she repined for herself—oh no!—but the idea of her husband's wan face was like a dagger in her heart.
From Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. XLII., May 1851 by Various
Never before had any dared to curb its will or restrain its tongues, and it greatly repined at its bondage, inwardly chafing under a restraint which nevertheless it did not dare to withstand.
From Tales from Spenser; Chosen from the Faerie Queene by Edmund Spencer
Thus time passed, and they became neither richer nor poorer, as is the common lot of men who labor for their bread; but neither Gadallah nor his father repined.
From Harper's New Monthly Magazine Vol. IV, No. 19, Dec 1851 by Various
In all this suffering the poor martyr repined not, but to the last called upon his Saviour.
From Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe
More a conscious repining at their existence, mixed with revulsion at the thought that she occasionally had to share space with them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 20, 2025
Far from repining in the sheltered world of the rectory, she was surrounded by sensational, exotic, dramatic life.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 8, 2013
It goes: Somewhere the sun is shining, Somewhere the songbirds dwell, Hush, then, thy sad repining, God lives, and all is well.
From Time Magazine Archive
When Nina discovered how much too well she had succeeded, she wept, cheered up. went away, leaving John, Mr. Ganson and Dorchester repining.
From Time Magazine Archive
Yet I have no fears now: what is done is done, there can be no repining.
From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
