regret

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   express with regret

   I regret to say that you did not gain admission to Harvard

2. 2
   verb

   decline formally or politely

   I regret I can't come to the party

3. 3
   verb

   To feel sorry about (a thing that has or has not happened), afterthink: to wish that a thing had not happened, that something else had happened instead.

   He regretted his words.

4. 4
   verb

   To feel sorry about (any thing).

   I regret that I have to do this, but I don't have a choice.

5. 5
   verb

   To miss; to feel the loss or absence of; to mourn.

   He more than ever regretted his home, and with increased desire longed to see his family.

6. 6
   noun

   Emotional pain on account of something done or experienced in the past, with a wish that it had been different; a looking back with dissatisfaction or with longing.

   What man does not remember with regret the first time he read Robinson Crusoe?

7. 7
   noun

   Dislike; aversion.

   Is it a vertue to have some ineffective regrets to damnation, and such a Vertue too, as shall serve to ballance all our vices?

8. 8
   noun

   The amount of avoidable loss that results from choosing the wrong action.

   Under squared errorloss we show that there exists unique minimax regret solution for the problem of selecting the threshold.

Etymology

From Middle English regretten, regreten, from Old French regreter, regrater (“to lament”), from re- (intensive prefix) + *greter, *grater (“to weep”), from Frankish *grātan (“to weep, mourn, lament”), from Proto-Germanic *grētaną (“to weep”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰreh₁d- (“to sound”); and Frankish *greutan (“to cry, weep”), from Proto-Germanic *greutaną (“to weep, cry”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrewd- (“to weep, be sad”), equivalent to re- + greet. Cognate with Old High German grāzan (“to cry”), Old English grǣtan (“to weep, greet”), Old English grēotan (“to weep, lament”), Old Norse…