Adjacent Words

Sorry definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

SOR'RY, a.
1. Grieved for the loss of some good; pained for some evil that has happened to one's self or friends or country. It does not ordinarily imply severe grief, but rather slight or transient regret. It may be however, and often is used to express deep grief. We are sorry to lose the company of those we love; we are sorry to lose friends or property; we are sorry for the misfortunes of our friends or of out country. And the king was sorry. Matthew 14.
2. Melancholy; dismal.
3. Poor; mean; vile; worthless; as a sorry slave; a sorry excuse. Coarse complexions, and cheeks of sorry grain-

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: feeling or expressing regret or sorrow or a sense of loss over something done or undone; "felt regretful over his vanished youth"; "regretful over mistakes she had made"; "he felt bad about breaking the vase" [syn: regretful, sorry, bad] [ant: unregretful, unregretting]
2: bad; unfortunate; "my finances were in a deplorable state"; "a lamentable decision"; "her clothes were in sad shape"; "a sorry state of affairs" [syn: deplorable, distressing, lamentable, pitiful, sad, sorry]
3: without merit; "a sorry horse"; "a sorry excuse"; "a lazy no- count, good-for-nothing goldbrick"; "the car was a no-good piece of junk" [syn: good-for-nothing, good-for-naught, meritless, no-account, no-count, no-good, sorry]
4: causing dejection; "a blue day"; "the dark days of the war"; "a week of rainy depressing weather"; "a disconsolate winter landscape"; "the first dismal dispiriting days of November"; "a dark gloomy day"; "grim rainy weather" [syn: blue, dark, dingy, disconsolate, dismal, gloomy, grim, sorry, drab, drear, dreary]

Merriam Webster's

adjective (sorrier; -est) Etymology: Middle English sory, from Old English s?rig, from s?r sore Date: before 12th century 1. feeling sorrow, regret, or penitence 2. mournful, sad 3. inspiring sorrow, pity, scorn, or ridicule ; pitiful <their affairs were in a sorry state> Synonyms: see contemptible • sorrily adverb • sorriness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. (sorrier, sorriest) 1 (predic.) pained or regretful or penitent (were sorry for what they had done; am sorry that you have to go). 2 (predic.; foll. by for) feeling pity or sympathy for (a person). 3 as an expression of apology. 4 wretched; in a poor state (a sorry sight). Phrases and idioms: sorry for oneself dejected. Derivatives: sorrily adv. sorriness n. Etymology: OE sarig f. WG (as SORE, -Y(2))

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Sorry Sor"ry, a. [Compar. Sorrier; superl. Sorriest.] [OE. sory, sary, AS. s[=a]rig, fr. s[=a]r, n., sore. See Sore, n. & a. The original sense was, painful; hence. miserable, sad.] 1. Grieved for the loss of some good; pained for some evil; feeling regret; -- now generally used to express light grief or affliction, but formerly often used to express deeper feeling. ``I am sorry for my sins.'' --Piers Plowman. Ye were made sorry after a godly manner. --2 Cor. vii. 9. I am sorry for thee, friend; 't is the duke's pleasure. --Shak. She entered, were he lief or sorry. --Spenser. 2. Melancholy; dismal; gloomy; mournful. --Spenser. All full of chirking was this sorry place. --Chaucer. 3. Poor; mean; worthless; as, a sorry excuse. ``With sorry grace.'' --Chaucer. Cheeks of sorry grain will serve. --Milton. Good fruit will sometimes grow on a sorry tree. --Sir W. Scott. Syn: Hurt; afflicted; mortified; vexed; chagrined; melancholy; dismal; poor; mean; pitiful.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(sorrier, sorriest) Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English. 1. You say 'Sorry' or 'I'm sorry' as a way of apologizing to someone for something that you have done which has upset them or caused them difficulties, or when you bump into them accidentally. 'We're all talking at the same time.'—'Yeah. Sorry.'... Sorry I took so long... Sorry for barging in like this... I'm really sorry if I said anything wrong... I'm sorry to call so late, but I need a favour... The next morning she came into my room and said she was sorry. CONVENTION [formulae] 2. If you are sorry about a situation, you feel regret, sadness, or disappointment about it. She was very sorry about all the trouble she'd caused... I'm sorry about what's happened... I'm sorry he's gone... He was sorry to see them go. ADJ: v-link ADJ, usu ADJ about n, ADJ that/to-inf 3. You use I'm sorry or sorry as an introduction when you are telling a person something that you do not think they will want to hear, for example when you are disagreeing with them or giving them bad news. No, I'm sorry, I can't agree with you... 'I'm sorry,' he told the real estate agent, 'but we really must go now.'... Sorry–no baths after ten o'clock... I'm sorry to have to tell you that Janet West is dead. CONVENTION 4. You use the expression I'm sorry to say to express regret together with disappointment or disapproval. I've only done half of it, I'm sorry to say... This, I am sorry to say, is almost entirely wishful thinking. PHRASE: PHR with cl, PHR that [feelings] 5. You say 'I'm sorry' to express your regret and sadness when you hear sad or unpleasant news. I've heard about Mollie–I'm so sorry... 'I'm afraid he's ill.'—'I'm sorry to hear that.' CONVENTION [feelings] 6. If you feel sorry for someone who is unhappy or in an unpleasant situation, you feel sympathy and sadness for them. I felt sorry for him and his colleagues–it must have been so frustrating for them... I am very sorry for the family. ADJ: v-link ADJ for n 7. You say that someone is feeling sorry for themselves when you disapprove of the fact that they keep thinking unhappily about their problems, rather than trying to be cheerful and positive. What he must not do is to sit around at home feeling sorry for himself. ADJ: v-link ADJ for pron-refl [disapproval] 8. You say 'Sorry?' when you have not heard something that someone has said and you want them to repeat it. = pardon, excuse me CONVENTION [formulae] 9. You use sorry when you correct yourself and use different words to say what you have just said, especially when what you say the second time does not use the words you would normally choose to use. Barcelona will be hoping to bring the trophy back to Spain–sorry, Catalonia–for the first time. CONVENTION 10. If someone or something is in a sorry state, they are in a bad state, mentally or physically. The fire left Kuwait's oil industry in a sorry state... ADJ: ADJ n 11. better safe than sorry: see safe

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Grieved, afflicted, pained, sorrowful. 2. Vexed, chagrined, mortified, pained, hurt, dejected. 3. Mean, vile, base, poor, miserable, wretched, pitiful, abject, beggarly, rascally, contemptible, despicable, shabby, bad, low, paltry, worthless. 4. Mournful, dismal, sad, painful, melancholy.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

Vile, mean, worthless. A sorry fellow, or hussy; a worthless man or woman.

Moby Thesaurus

abject, apologetic, ashamed, bad, base, base-minded, beggarly, beneath contempt, beneath one, cheap, cheerless, cheesy, common, compunctious, conscience-smitten, conscience-stricken, contemptible, contrite, crummy, debasing, degrading, demeaning, deplorable, depressing, despicable, discontented, disgraceful, dismal, full of remorse, gaudy, gimcracky, grim, gutter, heavyhearted, humiliating, humiliative, humorless, ignoble, ill-starred, in bad humor, inadequate, infestive, infra dig, infra indignitatem, joyless, low, low-minded, mean, melancholy, meretricious, mirthless, miserable, opprobrious, out of humor, out of sorts, outrageous, paltry, pathetic, penitent, penitential, pitiable, pitiful, pleasureless, poor, regretful, remorseful, repentant, repining, rubbishy, rueful, sad, saddened, scandalous, scrubby, scruffy, scummy, scurvy, scuzzy, self-accusing, self-condemning, self-convicting, self-debasing, self-flagellating, self-humiliating, self-punishing, self-reproaching, shabby, shamefaced, shamefast, shameful, shocking, shoddy, sordid, sorrowful, sorryish, star-crossed, stark, too bad, trashy, trifling, trumpery, two-for-a-cent, two-for-a-penny, twopenny, twopenny-halfpenny, unbecoming, uncheerful, uncheery, unhappy, unhappy about, unjoyful, unmirthful, unsmiling, unworthy of one, valueless, vile, wistful, worthless, wretched