sorry
Americanadjective
-
sorrier,
comparative
-
sorriest
superlative
-
feeling regret, compunction, sympathy, pity, etc..
to be sorry to leave one's friends; to be sorry for a remark; to be sorry for someone in trouble.
- Synonyms:
- pitying, sympathetic, regretful
- Antonyms:
- happy
-
regrettable or deplorable; unfortunate; tragic.
a sorry situation; to come to a sorry end.
-
sorrowful, grieved, or sad.
Was she sorry when her brother died?
-
associated with sorrow; suggestive of grief or suffering; melancholy; dismal.
-
wretched, poor, useless, or pitiful.
a sorry horse.
- Synonyms:
- worthless, paltry, contemptible, abject, shabby
interjection
adjective
-
feeling or expressing pity, sympathy, remorse, grief, or regret
I feel sorry for him
-
pitiful, wretched, or deplorable
a sorry sight
-
poor; paltry
a sorry excuse
-
affected by sorrow; sad
-
causing sorrow or sadness
interjection
Synonym Usage
See wretched.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of sorry
First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English sārig; cognate with Low German sērig, Old High German sērag. See sore, -y 1
Explanation
To be sorry is to feel regret or feel bad about something — usually something you did. "I'm sorry" is an apology. If you're feeling sorry about something, then you're feeling a combination of sadness and regret. You can be sorry for things you did, and you can also be sorry for bad things that happen to other people that don't involve you. At a funeral, people say "I'm sorry for your loss." The word sorry can also be used as an adjective to mean shoddy or crappy, as in "That is one sorry excuse!"
Vocabulary lists containing sorry
"The Road Not Taken"
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"The House on Mango Street" and "The Road Not Taken"
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"The Giving Tree"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Sports and I are largely incompatible, sorry to say.
From Salon ● Aug. 7, 2026
I am sorry to say they never strike me with their warmth, as, say, your great-uncle Billy was warm when he spoke about the Industrial Workers of the World.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
In a statement, the hotel said it was "genuinely sorry" that Owens' "employment with us ended as it did".
From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026
We felt as if we had walked into “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and HAL would say ominously, “I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
I want to tell her I’m sorry for those terrible things I said to her this morning.
From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler
He scored 24 goals, including two hat-tricks, and, without him, United would have been in an even sorrier state than the one they ended up in.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2022
And sorrier still because there might not be many more of them in the future.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 16, 2019
The one of us who dropped the mango is sufficiently sorry for her error, and even sorrier to discover that she has entirely misplaced her fork.
From The Verge ● Sep. 19, 2017
It’s a sorrier sign still that the Iranian foreign minister is in the right.
From Slate ● Jul. 18, 2017
He got even sorrier a few seconds later.
From "Tangerine" by Edward Bloor
One of the sorriest sights in the U.S.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 27, 2026
Having failed to learn from history, he’s poised to repeat its sorriest sagas, in the service of his ignorant, misinformed prejudices.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 24, 2024
Schofield recently revealed he believes his career is now over following the affair which he apologised for, calling it his "biggest, sorriest secret".
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2023
And technology has been one of the sorriest stock-market sectors this year, down 31.4 percent through the end of the third quarter.
From New York Times ● Oct. 14, 2022
The gods had by now grown sorry for Odysseus, with the single exception of Poseidon, and Athena was sorriest of all.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
