regretful
/ɹɪɡɹˈɛtfəl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.55 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "But, as their flowery garland was wreathed of the brightest roses that had grown there, so, in the tie that united them, were intertwined all the purest and best of their early joys. They went heavenward, supporting each other along the difficult path which it was their lot to tread and never wasted one regretful thought on the vanities of Merry Mount."
- "I continued also the wish to be with you, and experienced a strange, regretful consciousness of some barrier dividing us."
- "“I am working late to-night,” said I, “because I couldn't sleep, and wished to tire myself. But, dear guardian, you are late too, and look weary. You have no trouble, I hope, to keep you waking?” “None, little woman, that you would readily understand,” said he. He spoke in a regretful tone so new to me, that I inwardly repeated, as if that would help me to his meaning, “That I could readily understand!”"
- "There was a feeling of utter desolation in my heart, filling it with a despairing and regretful sense, that I had not gone down with Robert to the bottom of the sea."
- "And there, aloof, yet persistently with her, moving wherever she moved, was the Will Ladislaw' who was a changed belief exhausted of hope, a detected illusion—no, a living man towards whom there could not yet struggle any wail of regretful pity, from the midst of scorn and indignation and jealous offended pride."
- "Huck scanned his own clothing forlornly. "I reckon I ain't dressed fitten for a pirate," said he, with a regretful pathos in his voice; "but I ain't got none but these.""
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Italic *wre- Latin re-der. Old French re- Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰreh₁d-der. Proto-Germanic *grētaną Frankish *grātander. Old French *greter Old French regreterbor. Middle English regretten English regret Proto-Indo-European *pleh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-nós Proto-Indo-European *pl̥h₁nós Proto-Germanic *fullaz Proto-Germanic *-fullaz Old English -ful Middle English -ful English -ful English regretful From regret + -ful.
Word Breakdown
Inflected Forms
more regretful (comparative)
most regretful (superlative)