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The BFD Word of the Day

,   and  David Theobald
1 min read
word of the day

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The word for today is…

wistful (adjective):
1 : full of yearning or desire tinged with melancholy
2 : musingly sad

Source : Merriam -Webster

Etymology : Are you yearning to know the history of wistful? If so, I 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.” I 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.

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