REGRETFUL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does regretful mean? 

• REGRETFUL (adjective)
  The adjective REGRETFUL has 1 sense:

1. feeling or expressing regret or sorrow or a sense of loss over something done or undone

  Familiarity information: REGRETFUL used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• REGRETFUL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Feeling or expressing regret or sorrow or a sense of loss over something done or undone

Synonyms:

bad; regretful; sorry

Context example:

he felt bad about breaking the vase

Also:

penitent; repentant (feeling or expressing remorse for misdeeds)

Antonym:

unregretful (feeling no regret)

 Context examples 

I continued also the wish to be with you, and experienced a strange, regretful consciousness of some barrier dividing us.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And Amy, in her exile, longed eagerly to be at home, that she might work for Beth, feeling now that no service would be hard or irksome, and remembering, with regretful grief, how many neglected tasks those willing hands had done for her.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

His voice, more and more faltering in the utterance of these words, stopped for a few moments; then he went on: Once awakened from my dream—I have been a poor dreamer, in one way or other, all my life—I see how natural it is that she should have some regretful feeling towards her old companion and her equal.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)