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: exciting pity or sympathy : pitiable
rueful squalid poverty … by every wayside—
John Morley
John Morley
ruefulness
noun
Synonyms
Examples of rueful in a Sentence
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
Bank’s wry, matter-of-fact tone makes the stories’ many rueful asides, exquisitely funny similes and snappy one-liners all the more effective.
—Katherine A. Powers, Washington Post, 22 June 2024
The resulting series of escalating high jinks, which includes the use of blowfish poison, verges on the farcical, but the novel’s major chord is one of rueful longing.
—The New Yorker, 12 June 2024
Nadella quickly negotiated his return amid fears the company could split, and days later a rueful Sutskever apologized for his role in the mutiny.
—Christiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 15 May 2024
This is a persuasive concept, one that maps easily onto the score and gets at its rash youthfulness and rueful adulthood.
—Joshua Barone, New York Times, 4 Apr. 2024
See all Example Sentences for rueful 
Katherine A. Powers, Washington Post, 22 June 2024
The resulting series of escalating high jinks, which includes the use of blowfish poison, verges on the farcical, but the novel’s major chord is one of rueful longing.
—The New Yorker, 12 June 2024
Nadella quickly negotiated his return amid fears the company could split, and days later a rueful Sutskever apologized for his role in the mutiny.
—Christiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 15 May 2024
This is a persuasive concept, one that maps easily onto the score and gets at its rash youthfulness and rueful adulthood.
—Joshua Barone, New York Times, 4 Apr. 2024
See all Example Sentences for rueful
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'rueful.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near rueful
Cite this Entry
“Rueful.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rueful. Accessed 7 Jul. 2024.
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