What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Enjoy vs Regret - What's the difference?

enjoy | regret |

As verbs the difference between enjoy and regret

is that enjoy is to receive pleasure or satisfaction from something while regret is to feel sorry about (a thing that has or has not happened), afterthink: to wish that a thing had not happened, that something else had happened instead.

As a noun regret is

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.

enjoy

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To receive pleasure or satisfaction from something
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author=(Henry Petroski)
  • , title= Geothermal Energy , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal.}}
  • To have the use or benefit of something.
  • * Bible, Numbers xxxvi. 8
  • that the children of Israel may enjoy every man the inheritance of his fathers
  • * 1988 , Harry G Frankfurt, The importance of what we care about: philosophical essays
  • This account fails to provide any basis for doubting that animals of subhuman species enjoy the freedom it defines.
  • To have sexual intercourse with.
  • (Milton)

    Usage notes

    * This is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing) . See

    Derived terms

    * enjoyable * enjoyment * to enjoy oneself

    regret

    English

    (wikipedia regret)

    Verb

    (regrett)
  • To feel sorry about (a thing that has or has not happened), afterthink: to wish that a thing had not happened, that something else had happened instead.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=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.}}
  • (more generally) To feel sorry about (any thing).
  • Usage notes

    This 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

    Derived terms

    * regretter

    Noun

  • 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.
  • * Macaulay
  • What man does not remember with regret the first time he read Robinson Crusoe ?
  • * Clarendon
  • Never any prince expressed a more lively regret for the loss of a servant.
  • * Washington Irving
  • From its peaceful bosom [the grave] spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections.
  • (obsolete) Dislike; aversion.
  • See also

    * remorse * repentance