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In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed... No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. Preface to 1828 Dictionary
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REGRET', n.
REGRET', v.t.
Pain of mind 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; grief; sorrow;
especially, a mourning on account of the loss of some joy, advantage,
or satisfaction.
"A passionate regret at sin." Dr. H.
More.
What man does not remember with regret the first time he read Robinson Crusoe? Macaulay. Never any prince expressed a more lively regret for the loss of a servant. Clarendon. From its peaceful bosom [the grave] spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. W. Irving. Dislike; aversion.
[Obs.] Dr. H.
More.
Syn. -- Grief; concern; sorrow; lamentation; repentance; penitence; self-condemnation. -- Regret, Remorse, Compunction, Contrition, Repentance. Regret does not carry with it the energy of remorse, the sting of compunction, the sacredness of contrition, or the practical character of repentance. We even apply the term regret to circumstance over which we have had no control, as the absence of friends or their loss. When connected with ourselves, it relates rather to unwise acts than to wrong or sinful ones. C. J. Smith. To experience regret on account of; to
lose or miss with a sense of regret; to feel sorrow or dissatisfaction
on account of (the happening or the loss of something); as, to
regret an error; to regret lost opportunities or
friends.
Calmly he looked on either life, and here In a few hours they [the Israelites] began to regret their slavery, and to murmur against their leader. Macaulay. Recruits who regretted the plow from which they had been violently taken. Macaulay. | ||||||||