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REGRETS
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A polite refusal of an invitation
Synonyms:
declination; regrets
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("regrets" is a kind of...):
acknowledgement; acknowledgment (a statement acknowledging something or someone)
refusal (a message refusing to accept something that is offered)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Present simple (third person singular) of the verb regret
Context examples:
Thoughtfully, for I could not be here once more, and so near Agnes, without the revival of those regrets with which I had so long been occupied.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
But his polite regrets didn't impose upon her, and when she galloped away with the Count, she saw Laurie sit down by her aunt with an actual expression of relief.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
She had tasted of consequence in its most flattering form; and he did hope that the loss of it, the sinking again into nothing, would awaken very wholesome regrets in her mind.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
From thus listening and thinking, she was roused by a whisper of Mrs Musgrove's who, overcome by fond regrets, could not help saying—Ah! Miss Anne, if it had pleased Heaven to spare my poor son, I dare say he would have been just such another by this time.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
She had resolution enough to pursue her own will in spite of her brother, but not enough to refrain from unreasonable regrets at that brother's unreasonable anger, nor from missing the luxuries of her former home.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Having never even fancied herself in love before, her regard had all the warmth of first attachment, and, from her age and disposition, greater steadiness than most first attachments often boast; and so fervently did she value his remembrance, and prefer him to every other man, that all her good sense, and all her attention to the feelings of her friends, were requisite to check the indulgence of those regrets which must have been injurious to her own health and their tranquillity.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Back it came, with the editor's regrets, and Martin sent it to San Francisco again, this time to The Hornet, a pretentious monthly that had been fanned into a constellation of the first magnitude by the brilliant journalist who founded it.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
I was sure St. John Rivers—pure-lived, conscientious, zealous as he was—had not yet found that peace of God which passeth all understanding: he had no more found it, I thought, than had I with my concealed and racking regrets for my broken idol and lost elysium—regrets to which I have latterly avoided referring, but which possessed me and tyrannised over me ruthlessly.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
At present, continued Elinor, he regrets what he has done.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many unavailing sorrows and regrets.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
