Synonyms of regretful

regretful

adjective

ri-ˈgret-fəl 

1

as in heartbroken

expressing or suggesting mourning

gave me a regretful look when I told him we had to move my mother to a nursing home

Synonyms & Similar Words

• heartbroken
• mournful
• weeping
• funeral
• bitter
• sad
• grieving
• unhappy
• sorry
• sorrowful
• anguished
• melancholy
• wailing
• tearful
• lamentable
• rueful
• agonized
• aching
• doleful
• depressed
• plaintive
• lugubrious
• somber
• woeful
• dolorous
• crying
• plangent
• morbid
• bleak
• dark
• bemoaning
• bewailing
• funereal
• deploring
• dejected
• dolesome
• pathetic
• miserable
• heartsick
• dispirited
• elegiac
• despondent
• disconsolate
• downcast
• crestfallen
• inconsolable
• forlorn
• gloomy
• moody
• glum
• darkening
• keening
• woebegone
• brokenhearted
• desolate
• careworn
• downhearted
• elegiacal
• pessimistic
• sullen
• bleeding
• morose
• groaning
• sombre
• suffering
• low-spirited
• moaning
• piteous
• cheerless
• grey
• wretched
• howling
• gray
• heartsore
• joyless
• black
• dirgelike
• dismal
• low
• dreary
• comfortless
• triste
• saturnine
• bawling
• yammering

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• happy
• joyful
• triumphant
• cheerful
• delighted
• smiling
• bright
• cheery
• laughing
• joyous
• optimistic
• rejoicing
• merry
• hopeful
• blissful
• jolly
• exulting
• lighthearted
• mirthful
• buoyant
• encouraging
• blithe
• glorying
• ecstatic
• cheering
• giddy
• euphoric
• rapturous
• rhapsodic
• blithesome
• jocund
• heady
• elated
• exhilarated
• rhapsodical

2

as in sorry

feeling sorrow for a wrong that one has done

was truly regretful that she had yelled at him

Synonyms & Similar Words

• sorry
• ashamed
• remorseful
• apologetic
• repentant
• contrite
• rueful
• penitent
• sheepish
• compunctious
• sorrowful
• weeping
• shamefaced
• mournful
• plaintive
• grieving
• wailing
• lugubrious
• dolorous
• woeful

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• unrepentant
• unapologetic
• remorseless
• cruel
• ruthless
• impenitent
• pitiless
• merciless
• unmerciful
• shameless
• unashamed
• compassionless

Examples of regretful in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

People call it soulless, posting regretful before-and-after photos of house flippers ripping out hardwood in favor of gray laminate or turning warm Midcentury spaces into cold, modern ones. —Jack Flemming, Los Angeles Times, 9 Aug. 2024

We're trained to be regretful about so many things. —Alexandra Koster, refinery29.com, 4 June 2024

Heaney, as one of the editors, was in the middle of this and obviously disturbed (and regretful), but the traces of this event in his letters are meager. —Harper's Magazine, 25 June 2024

Kelly Osbourne is feeling regretful about her music career. —Njera Perkins, Peoplemag, 4 July 2024