regretful

adjective

re·​gret·​ful ri-ˈgret-fəl 

: full of regret : feeling or expressing regret

feeling regretful

a regretful sigh/look

… and all that the three-year difference does is make us laugh and make us regretful about our own adolescences.

—Stanley Kauffmann

regretfulness noun

Even more than 40 years after Jones' death, Richards refuses to indulge in any false sentimentality or regretfulness.

—Greg Kot

Synonyms

• aching
• agonized
• anguished
• bemoaning
• bewailing
• bitter
• deploring
• doleful
• dolesome
• dolorous
• funeral
• grieving
• heartbroken
• lamentable
• lugubrious
• mournful
• plaintive
• plangent
• rueful
• sorrowful
• sorry
• wailing
• weeping
• woeful

Examples of regretful in a Sentence

gave me a regretful look when I told him we had to move my mother to a nursing home

was truly regretful that she had yelled at him

Recent Examples on the Web

Heaney, as one of the editors, was in the middle of this and obviously disturbed (and regretful), but the traces of this event in his letters are meager. —Harper's Magazine, 25 June 2024

Kelly Osbourne is feeling regretful about her music career. —Njera Perkins, Peoplemag, 4 July 2024

The regretful audio mixing feels oddly apiece with the film’s cheap DIY internet vibe, which may have seemed amateurish at the time of release but now feels like a window back into a simpler, crunchier time for LGBT cinema. —Wilson Chapman, IndieWire, 14 June 2024

And George's death was obviously regretful and the manner of it is not great. —Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 18 May 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1647, in the meaning defined above