REGRETS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does regrets mean? 

• REGRETS (noun)
  The noun REGRETS has 1 sense:

1. a polite refusal of an invitation

  Familiarity information: REGRETS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• REGRETS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A polite refusal of an invitation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

declination; regrets

Hypernyms ("regrets" is a kind of...):

acknowledgement; acknowledgment (a statement acknowledging something or someone)

refusal (a message refusing to accept something that is offered)

 Context examples 

While they were thus comfortably occupied, Mr. Woodhouse was enjoying a full flow of happy regrets and fearful affection with his daughter.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Your feelings are as well known to me as my wishes and regrets must be to you.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

She resigned herself at first to all the misery of her situation; and happy had it been if she had not lived to overcome those regrets which the remembrance of me occasioned.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Softened regrets they might be, teaching me what I had failed to learn when my younger life was all before me, but not the less regrets.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

And why had I these aspirations and these regrets?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Her attachment and regrets had, for a long time, clouded every enjoyment of youth, and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lasting effect.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Martin sent his inability to accept and his regrets by wire "collect."

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life become a beautiful success, in spite of poverty.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

She did not fear her father's opposition, but he was going to be made unhappy; and that it should be through her means—that she, his favourite child, should be distressing him by her choice, should be filling him with fears and regrets in disposing of her—was a wretched reflection, and she sat in misery till Mr. Darcy appeared again, when, looking at him, she was a little relieved by his smile.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Comparisons would occur—regrets would arise;—and her joy, though sincere as her love for her sister, was of a kind to give her neither spirits nor language.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)