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Regret vs Envy - What's the difference?

regret | envy |

In obsolete|lang=en terms the difference between regret and envy

is that regret is (obsolete) dislike; aversion while envy is (obsolete) to emulate.

As verbs the difference between regret and envy

is that 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 while envy is to feel displeasure or hatred towards (someone) for their good fortune or possessions.

As nouns the difference between regret and envy

is that 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 while envy is resentful desire of something possessed by another or others (but not limited to material possessions).

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

    envy

    English

    Noun

  • Resentful desire of something possessed by another or others (but not limited to material possessions).
  • *(John Milton) (1608-1674)
  • *:No bliss enjoyed by us excites his envy more.
  • *(Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)
  • *:Envy , to which the ignoble mind's a slave, / Is emulation in the learned or brave.
  • *
  • *:Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracydistilling therefrom an acid envy that robbed her napoleon of all its savour.
  • *1983 , (Stanley Rosen), Plato’s Sophist , p.66:
  • *:Theodorus assures Socrates that no envy will prevent the Stranger from responding
  • An object of envious notice or feeling.
  • * (1800-1859)
  • *:This constitution in former days used to be the envy of the world.
  • (lb) Hatred, enmity, ill-feeling.
  • *:
  • *:Syre said la?celot vnto Arthur by this crye that ye haue made ye wyll put vs that ben aboute yow in grete Ieopardy / for there be many Knyghtes that haue grete enuye to vs / therfore whan we shal mete at the daye of Iustes there wille be hard skyfte amonge vs
  • *1598 , (William Shakespeare), :
  • *:But let me tell the World, / If he out-liue the enuie of this day, / England did neuer owe so sweet a hope, / So much misconstrued in his Wantonnesse.
  • (lb) Emulation; rivalry.
  • * (1586-c.1639)
  • *:Such as cleanliness and decency / Prompt to a virtuous envy .
  • (lb) Public odium; ill repute.
  • *(Ben Jonson) (1572-1637)
  • *:to lay the envy of the war upon Cicero
  • Verb

    (en-verb)
  • To feel displeasure or hatred towards (someone) for their good fortune or possessions.
  • (obsolete) To have envious feelings (at).
  • *, II.3.3:
  • I do not envy at their wealth, titles, offices;let me live quiet and at ease.
  • *Jeremy Taylor:
  • Who would envy at the prosperity of the wicked?
  • (obsolete) To give (something) to (someone) grudgingly or reluctantly; to begrudge.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.v:
  • But that sweet Cordiall, which can restore / A loue-sick hart, she did to him enuy  […].
  • (obsolete) To show malice or ill will; to rail.
  • *Shakespeare:
  • He hasenvied against the people.
  • (obsolete) To do harm to; to injure; to disparage.
  • * J. Fletcher
  • If I make a lie / To gain your love and envy my best mistress, / Put me against a wall.
  • (obsolete) To hate.
  • (Marlowe)
  • (obsolete) To emulate.
  • (Spenser)