v., -gret·ted, -gret·ting, -grets. v.tr.
- To feel sorry, disappointed, or distressed about.
- To remember with a feeling of loss or sorrow; mourn.
To feel regret.
n.
- A sense of loss and longing for someone or something gone.
- A feeling of disappointment or distress about something that one wishes could be different.
- regrets A courteous expression of regret, especially at having to decline an invitation.
[Middle English regretten, to lament, from Old French regreter : re-, re- + -greter, to weep (perhaps of Germanic origin).]
regretter re·gret'ter n.SYNONYMS regret, sorrow, grief, anguish, woe, heartache, heartbreak. These nouns denote mental distress. Regret has the broadest range, from mere disappointment to a painful sense of dissatisfaction or self-reproach, as over something lost or done: She looked back with regret on the pain she had caused her family. Sorrow connotes sadness caused by misfortune, affliction, or loss; it can also imply contrition: "sorrow for his ... children, who needed his protection, and whom he could not protect" (James Baldwin). Grief is deep, acute personal sorrow, as that arising from irreplaceable loss: "Grief fills the room up of my absent child,/Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me" (Shakespeare). Anguish implies agonizing, excruciating mental pain: "I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement" (Abraham Lincoln). Woe is intense, often prolonged wretchedness or misery: "the deep, unutterable woe/Which none save exiles feel" (W.E. Aytoun). Heartache most often applies to sustained private sorrow: The child's difficulties are a source of heartache to the parents. Heartbreak is overwhelming grief: "Better a little chiding than a great deal of heartbreak" (Shakespeare).
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
