mournfully

English

Etymology

mournful +‎ -ly

Adverb

mournfully (comparative more mournfully, superlative most mournfully)

1. In a mournful manner; as if in mourning for something.
   • 1836, Hans Christian Andersen (translated into English by Mrs. H. B. Paull in 1872), The Little Mermaid

     "Why have not we an immortal soul?" asked the little mermaid mournfully; "I would give gladly all the hundreds of years that I have to live, to be a human being only for one day, and to have the hope of knowing the happiness of that glorious world above the stars."

   • 1927 May, Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (Uniform Edition of the Works of Virginia Woolf), new edition, London: Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, […], published 1930, →OCLC, part I (The Window), page 140:

     The steamer itself had vanished, but the great scroll of smoke still hung in the air and drooped like a flag mournfully in valediction.

   • 1956 [1880], Johanna Spyri, Heidi, translation of original by Eileen Hall, page 104:

     So she dared not tell anyone how she felt, but went about mournfully, with a heavy heart.

Synonyms

• sorrowfully, ruefully

Hypernyms

• sadly