/ˈsɒɹ.i/, /ˈsɑɹ.i/, /ˈsɔɹ.i/
OriginFrom Middle English sory, from Old English sāriġ (“feeling or expressing grief, sorry, grieved, sorrowful, sad, mournful, bitter”), from Proto-West Germanic *sairag, from Proto-Germanic *sairagaz (“sad”), from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂yro (“hard, rough, painful”). Cognate with Scots sairie (“sad, grieved”), Saterland Frisian seerich (“sore, inflamed”), West Frisian searich (“sad, sorry”), Low German serig (“sick, scabby”), German dialectal sehrig (“sore, sad, painful”), Swedish sårig. By surface analysis, sor(e) + -y. Unrelated to sorrow despite the similarity in form and meaning.
- Regretful or apologetic for one's actions.
“I am sorry I stepped on your toes. It was an accident.”
- Grieved or saddened, especially by the loss of something or someone.
“I feel sorry for you, about your exam results.”
“The President was sorry to hear that the Ambassador was leaving.”
- Poor, pitifully sad or regrettable.
“The storm left his garden in a sorry state.”
“... often the only movement on the landscape is winter smoke winding out the chimney of some sorry-looking farmhouse ...”
- Pathetic; contemptibly inadequate.
“Bob is a sorry excuse for a football player.”
“The sorry experience did little to suggest that Musk knows how to run a social media platform or that DeSantis is capable of governing a global superpower armed with nuclear weapons.”
- Expresses regret, remorse, or sorrow.
“Sorry! I didn't see that you were on the phone.”
“Sorry about yesterday. — No worries.”
“Sorry I’m so late.”
- Said as a request to excuse one's unintentional behaviors.
- Said as a request to pass somebody.
- Used as a request for someone to repeat something not heard or understood clearly.
“Sorry? What was that? The phone cut out.”
- Used to correct oneself in speech.
“There are four—sorry, five—local branches of the store.”
- Used as a hedge.
“Sorry, but I don't care what you think.”
- The act of saying sorry; an apology.
“The British would do it standing stock still, Latinos would dance their sorries, and Canadians would find a way to apologize on ice.”
“So learn how to tailor your sorries to the sexes. Women tend to want an acknowledgment of what they're going through...”
- intransitive, rare, transitiveTo feel sorry (for someone).
“Jus' that once I sorried for her. Souls cross the skies o' time, Abbess'd say, like clouds crossin' skies o' the world.”
Formssorrier(comparative) · sorriest(superlative) · sorries(plural) · sorrys(plural) · sorries(present, singular, third-person) · sorrying(participle, present) · sorried(participle, past) · sorried(past)