adjective
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full of or expressing reproach
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archaic deserving of reproach; disgraceful
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of reproachful
Explanation
Someone who's reproachful is deeply disapproving. A reproachful look on your mom's face is a sign that you've disappointed her and might be in trouble. When you criticize your friend's decision to borrow her parents' car without asking, you probably sound reproachful. You might not even need to speak — a reproachful glance is sometimes enough to communicate your disapproval. When you reproach someone, you express disappointment in them, and to be reproachful is to be "full of reproach." The root word is the Old French reproche, "blame, shame, or disgrace."
Vocabulary lists containing reproachful
Power Suffix: -ful
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"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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Catching Fire
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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.
The argument leaves me, though ever more sure, Reproachful and angry and sullen and dumb: It leaves her reforming my diet, to cure My rum-ti-tiddily-um-ti-tum.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 by Various
Reproachful spectres crowded the air, animated and vocal, not in the articulate language of mortals but assailing him with faint sobs, deep sighs, and fateful gestures.
From The Rescue A Romance of the Shallows by Conrad, Joseph
What is wanting among Women, as well as among Men, is the Love of laudable Things, and not to rest only in the Forbearance of such as are Reproachful.
From The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Addison, Joseph
They looked at me Reproachful; how I longed to set them free!
From Counter-Attack and Other Poems by Sassoon, Siegfried
Reproachful reminiscences of Coleridge and Theosophy were natural too; then fond regrets for Literature and its glories: if you act your romance, how can you also write it?
From Life of John Sterling by Carlyle, Thomas
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.
