rueful
Americanadjective
-
causing sorrow or pity; pitiable; deplorable.
a rueful plight.
-
feeling, showing, or expressing sorrow, repentance, or regret.
the rueful look on her face.
adjective
-
feeling or expressing sorrow or repentance
a rueful face
-
inspiring sorrow or pity
Other Word Forms
- half-rueful adjective
- ruefully adverb
- ruefulness noun
- unrueful adjective
- unruefulness noun
Etymology
Origin of rueful
First recorded in 1175–1225, rueful is from the Middle English word reowful; rue 1, -ful
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.
He could not bear the rueful eyes of the villagers upon him.
From Literature
"In one day," he says, with a rueful smile.
From BBC
So he decides to keep appearing in clubs to tell tales of his relationship woes, lacing the commentary with rueful remarks that are vaguely comic, though nothing he says is actually funny.
It’s one of many smart, rueful asides in what amounts to a nonjudgmental cinematic essay on the increasingly atomized nature of contemporary living.
“And then,” she says with a small, rueful laugh, “everything was really hard for the next 20 years.”
From Los Angeles Times
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.
