regretとは意味・読み方・使い方

発音

• IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈɡɹɛt/, /ɹəˈɡɹɛt/, /ɹiˈɡɹɛt/
• 韻: -ɛt

動詞

regret (三人称単数 現在形 regrets, 現在分詞 regretting, 過去形および過去分詞形 regretted)

1. To feel sorry about (a thing that has または has not happened), afterthink: to wish that a thing had not happened, that something else had happened instead.

   He regretted his words.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter 4, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., OCLC 222716698:

     Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.

   • 2004 November 9, Halo 2, Microsoft Studios, spoken by Avery Johnson (David Scully):

     Dear humanity, we regret bein' alien bastards, we regret comin' to Earth, and we most definitely regret the Corps just blew up our raggedy-ass fleet!

2. (more generally) To feel sorry about (any thing).

   I regret that I have to do this, but I don't have a choice.

3. (archaic, transitive) To miss; to feel the loss or absence of; to mourn.
   • 1845, The Church of England Magazine (volume 19, page 301)

     He more than ever regretted his home, and with increased desire longed to see his family.

   • 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped

     This [the Cage] was but one of Cluny’s hiding-places; he had caves, besides, and underground chambers in several parts of his country; and following the reports of his scouts, he moved from one to another as the soldiers drew near or moved away. By this manner of living, and thanks to the affection of his clan, he had not only stayed all this time in safety, while so many others had fled or been taken and slain: but stayed four or five years longer, and only went to France at last by the express command of his master. There he soon died; and it is strange to reflect that he may have regretted his Cage upon Ben Alder.

使用する際の注意点

• "Regret" is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (the -ing form), except in set phrases with tell, say, and inform, where the to infinitive is used. See Appendix:English catenative verbs

派生語

• regretter

名詞

regret (countable かつ uncountable, 複数形 regrets)

1. Emotional pain on account of something done or experienced in the past, with a wish that it had been different; a looking back with dissatisfaction or with longing.
   • 1828, Thomas Macaulay, John Dryden

     What man does not remember with regret the first time he read Robinson Crusoe?

   • 1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, “(please specify |book=I to XVI)”, in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed at the Theater, published 1707, OCLC 937919305:

     Never any prince expressed a more lively regret for the loss of a servant.

   • 1819 June 23 – 1820 September 13​, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “(please specify the title)”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., New York, N.Y.: […] C. S. Van Winkle, […], OCLC 1090970992:

     From its peaceful bosom [the grave] spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections.

2. (obsolete) Dislike; aversion.
   • 1667, Richard Allestree, The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety:

     Is it a vertue to have some ineffective regrets to damnation, and such a Vertue too, as shall serve to ballance all our vices?

派生語

• regretful

参考

• remorse
• repentance

Further reading

• regret in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• regret in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.