From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpoignantpoi‧gnant /ˈpɔɪnjənt/ adjective EMOTIONALmaking you feel sad or full of pitypoignant reminder/image/moment etc a poignant reminder of our nation’s great sacrifices —poignancy noun [uncountable] —poignantly adverb a poignantly expressed tribute to his father
Examples from the Corpus
poignant• The fact that the Grimkes came of notable Southern Huguenot stock made their case especially poignant.• Lanchbery uses Chopin's poignant Andante Spinato to express Natalia's realisation that love has now escaped her.• It was a poignant film, which she wished had been longer.• Everything became too poignant for us, for both of us.• And in this case there is a poignant link between the two.• a poignant love story• In a poignant moment, Richter interrupted his speech to thank his mother and father.• The poignant music drifted into the coffee-house, and Meredith settled back on the Victorian chair to enjoy it and her surroundings.• Several months after we first met, she tells me a revealing and poignant story of her first day at college.• Santiago has crafted a poignant tale that celebrates the human spirit and the triumph of will.• This is one of her most beautiful and poignant works.poignant reminder/image/moment etc• Portraits of young men in uniform, many of whom never returned, make a poignant moment in most twentieth-century family collections.• Surely it is a poignant reminder of the capacity of the human being to suffer mental anguish.• Yesterday's report from Body Shop was a poignant reminder of the fate that can await highly-rated companies.• Somehow it was a poignant reminder that the eternal things do not change.• It is a poignant moment: will Ambedkarnagar be destined to the same cycle that Sanjay Gandhi has been through?Origin poignant (1300-1400) French present participle of poindre “to prick, sting”, from Latin pungere; → PUNGENT 