sorry
pronunciation
How to pronounce sorry in British English:
UK [ˈsɒri]
How to pronounce sorry in American English:
US [ˈsɑːri]
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- Adjective:
- keenly sorry or regretful
- feeling or expressing sorrow or pity
- having regret or sorrow or a sense of loss over something done or undone
- feeling or expressing pain or sorrow for sins or offenses
- bad; unfortunate
- depressing in character or appearance
- without merit
Word Origin
- sorry
- sorry: [OE] Sorry goes back to a prehistoric West Germanic *sairig-, a derivative of *sairaz (source of English sore). The original base denoted physical as well as mental pain, but it is the latter semantic path that has been taken by sorry. Despite the similarity, incidentally, sorry has no etymological connection with sorrow [OE], which comes from a prehistoric Germanic base meaning ‘care’, and is related to modern German sorge ‘worry, sorrow’.=> sore
- sorry (adj.)
- Old English sarig "distressed, grieved, full of sorrow" (not found in the physical sense of "sore"), from Proto-Germanic *sairiga- "painful" (cognates: Old Saxon serag, Middle Dutch seerigh "sore; sad, sorry," Dutch zeerig "sore, full of sores," Old High German serag, Swedish sårig "sore, full of sores"), from *sairaz "pain" (physical and mental); related to *saira- "suffering, sick, ill" (see sore (adj.)). Meaning "wretched, worthless, poor" first recorded mid-13c. Spelling shift from -a- to -o- by influence of sorrow. Apologetic sense (short for I'm sorry) is attested from 1834; phrase sorry about that popularized 1960s by U.S. TV show "Get Smart." Related: Sorrily; sorriness.
Synonym
Antonym
Example
- 1. Love means perpetually having to say you 're sorry .
- 2. I am sorry to bring you so much trouble .
- 3. What do these sorry tales say about strategy ?
- 4. And some sorry souls go into shock at the mere presence of certain foods , particularly peanuts and shellfish .
- 5. I 'm sorry , our appointment has to be changed .