tearful.

Crying or close to crying because of emotion.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• a tearful farewell
• a tearful appeal

On the page

Their tearful farewell ended when the conductor called for the doors to close.

Usage notes

Primary category: literary / elevated general. Forms: Comparative more tearful; superlative most tearful when comparison is meaningful. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: description, character. Commonness: moderately common.