Synonyms and Antonyms of rueful
- the rueful faces of friends and family who had gathered to pay their last respects
dirgelike, elegiac (also elegiacal), melancholy
dejected, depressed, despondent, disconsolate, dispirited, downcast, downhearted, heartsick, heartsore, inconsolable, tearful
brokenhearted, careworn, crestfallen, downcast, downhearted, forlorn, gloomy, glum, low-spirited, miserable, sad, triste, unhappy, woebegone
bawling, crying, groaning, howling, keening, moaning, yammering
black, bleak, cheerless, comfortless, dark, darkening, desolate, dismal, dreary, funereal, gloomy, glum, gray (also grey), joyless, low, miserable, moody, morbid, morose, pathetic, pessimistic, piteous, saturnine, somber (or sombre), sullen, wretched
delighted, exulting, glorying, happy, joyful, rejoicing, triumphant
bright, cheerful, cheering, cheery
blissful, blithe, blithesome, buoyant, jocund, jolly, joyous, lighthearted, merry, mirthful
encouraging, hopeful, optimistic
ecstatic, elated, euphoric, exhilarated, giddy, heady, rapturous, rhapsodic (also rhapsodical)
- a rueful youth who had come to ask for forgiveness for online bullying
- the rueful, desperate poverty of people in parts of the Third World