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Definition of "wailful" [wail•ful]

  • Resembling a wail; mournful. (adjective)
  • Issuing a sound resembling a wail. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "wailful" in a sentence
  • "I also thought of a line from Keats's "Ode to Autumn": "Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn.""
  • "My suggestion is born out by an intertextual reference in Miriam Allott's note to the "wailful choir" of "small gnats" mourning in "To Autumn.""
  • "There the witch fed her upon milk, and wine dark as a carbuncle, and pomegranates, and purple grapes, and birds that dwell in marshy places; and she played to her mournful tunes, and caused wailful violins to attend her, and told her sad tales, thus holding her ever in an atmosphere of sweet sorrow."
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