From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishtearfultear‧ful /ˈtɪəfəl $ ˈtɪr-/ (also teary informal) adjective CRYsomeone who is tearful is crying a little, or almost crying a tearful farewell —tearfully adverb She looked at me tearfully.
Examples from the Corpus
tearful• Once in bed she felt unable to move at all and became tearful.• For some fans, it wasn't enough to leave trinkets and pictures scrawled with tearful goodbye messages in just one place.• a tearful goodbye• He smiled at her, trying to look comforting; he was feeling almost as tearful himself.• Once again he listened calmly to her tearful pleas, and once again Scott refused to walk out on the station and join Annabel.• She had a tearful reunion with her parents, Alan and Audrey, who stayed at the hospital overnight.• Few people watching the tearful, scruffily-dressed woman burst through the court doors to freedom would have recognised her as a countess. 