wistful

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The Word of the Day for October 4 is:

wistful   \WIST-ful\   adjective 
     1 : full of yearning or desire tinged with melancholy; 
also : inspiring such yearning 
    *2 : musingly sad : pensive

Example sentence:
     Dan's gaze was wistful as he watched the movers load the 
furniture into the truck and thought of all the good times he'd 
had in the house.

Did you know?
     Are you full of yearning to know the history of "wistful"? 
If so, we can ease your melancholy a little by telling you 
that "wistful" comes from a combination of "wishful" 
and "wistly," a now obsolete word meaning "intently." We can't 
say with certainty where "wistly" came from, but it may have 
sprung from "whistly," an old term meaning "silently" 
or "quietly." How did the supposed transition from a word 
meaning "quietly" to one meaning "intently" come about? That's 
something to muse about, but the answer isn't known.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.