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
-
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
But if no one agrees, the author need not repine.
From Time Magazine Archive
Must Man, the chiefest Work of Art Divine, Be doom'd in endless Discord to 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
He never halts, never repines, never is puzzled, like other men; that tranquillity, full of life, that ceaseless but graceful motion, "without haste, without rest," for which we all are striving, he has attained.
From Life Without and Life Within or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and poems. by Margaret Fuller
I told it to my Lady Pomfret, concluding it would divert her too; and forgetting that she repines when she should laugh, and reasons when she should be diverted.
From The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 1 by Peter Cunningham
Perchance it never comes, and the weary one may be joined to that which heaven never intended it to be joined, or it repines and goes to the grave unloved.
From The Land of Mystery by Edward Sylvester Ellis
When I laugh, something within me suffers and repines; it is by no means rare for me to pass suddenly and without transition from the wildest gayety to the profoundest sadness and melancholy.
From The Cross of Berny by Florence Fendall
Who is he among the children of the earth, that repines at the power of the wicked? and who is he, that would change the lot of the righteous?
From Almoran and Hamet by John Hawkesworth
Mr. Cartwright, I fear that I have not been hitherto sufficiently mindful of this, and that I have repined where I ought to have blessed.
From The Vicar of Wrexhill by Mrs Trollope
The General's daughter repined, perhaps, after her former fortunes.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. by Various
Sir, the Churches in this country have long repined at the position of the Churches in England on the subject of Slavery.
From Abolition Fanaticism in New York Speech of a Runaway Slave from Baltimore, at an Abolition Meeting in New York, Held May 11, 1847 by Frederick Douglass
Under the plane-trees Michael was stabbed with one pang for Lily, and he repined at the waste of this warm June.
From Sinister Street, vol. 2 by Compton MacKenzie
Then the knight returned again to them and shewed the King's words, the which, greatly encouraged them, and repined in that they had sent to the King as they did.
From The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I by Henry Cabot Lodge
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
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
Ripening but not repining, Paul seemed to those around him a strong and saintly character, though he knew himself still a struggling beginner at his endless job.
From Time Magazine Archive
She whispered a poem: “The storm is past, no more repining Behold! the gentle sun is shining” “Yeah,” muttered Charles, “but the track is still too heavy for Seabiscuit.”
From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand
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.
