Regret vs Excuse - What's the difference?
regret | excuse |
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).
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
* Clarendon
* Washington Irving
(obsolete) Dislike; aversion.
To forgive; to pardon.
* Shakespeare
* Archbishop Sharp
To allow to leave.
To provide an excuse for; to explain, with the aim of alleviating guilt or negative judgement.
To relieve of an imputation by apology or defense; to make apology for as not seriously evil; to ask pardon or indulgence for.
* Bible, 2. Corinthians xii. 19
An explanation designed to avoid or alleviate guilt or negative judgment.
(legal) A defense to a criminal or civil charge wherein the accused party admits to doing acts for which legal consequences would normally be appropriate, but asserts that special circumstances relieve that party of culpability for having done those acts.
An example.(attention)
As verbs the difference between regret and excuse
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 excuse is to forgive; to pardon.As nouns the difference between regret and excuse
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 excuse is an explanation designed to avoid or alleviate guilt or negative judgment.regret
English
(wikipedia regret)Verb
(regrett)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. SeeDerived terms
* regretterNoun
- What man does not remember with regret the first time he read Robinson Crusoe ?
- Never any prince expressed a more lively regret for the loss of a servant.
- From its peaceful bosom [the grave] spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections.
See also
* remorse * repentanceExternal links
* * ----excuse
English
Verb
(excus)- I excused him his transgressions.
- I must excuse what cannot be amended.
- A man's persuasion that a thing is duty, will not excuse him from guilt in practising it, if really and indeed it be against God's law.
- May I be excused from the table?
- I excused myself from the proceedings to think over what I'd heard.
- You know he shouldn't have done it, so don't try to excuse his behavior!
- Think ye that we excuse ourselves to you?
Synonyms
* forgive, let off the hook, let pass, pardon, unguiltDerived terms
* excuse me * excuse my FrenchNoun
(en noun)- Tell me why you were late – and I don't want to hear any excuses !
- That thing is a poor excuse for a gingerbread man. Hasn't anyone taught you how to bake?
- He's a sorry excuse of a doctor.