What's the difference between despair and regret?

Despair


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To be hopeless; to have no hope; to give up all hope or expectation; -- often with of.
  • (v. t.) To give up as beyond hope or expectation; to despair of.
  • (v. t.) To cause to despair.
  • (n.) Loss of hope; utter hopelessness; complete despondency.
  • (n.) That which is despaired of.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Crushing their dream of denying healthcare to millions of people will put them on that road to despair.
  • (2) It was the ease with which minor debt could slide into a tangle of hunger and despair.
  • (3) The behavioural despair test is a good complement for screening except for drugs having a beta-agonist activity, it appears that this test is dependent on functional relationships between alpha 2 and serotonergic systems.
  • (4) It became his task to use his literary art in an opposite way to Hesse, even though he despaired of what literature might achieve or of the capacity of rich Europeans to change.
  • (5) He has his job to do and he has to do it the way he thinks best.” On Saturday night, in a sign of the growing concern at the top of the party about the affair, one shadow cabinet member told the Observer : “The issue is already echoing back at us on the doorsteps.” At all levels, there was despair that the furore had turned the spotlight on to Labour’s difficulties as a time when the party had hoped to take advantage of the Tories’ second byelection loss at the hands of Ukip.
  • (6) Many have been driven to a suicidal despair that only those devoid of human empathy can fail to understand.
  • (7) In recent weeks a number of suicides apparently linked to financial despair have hit the headlines.
  • (8) "You can get six, seven or eight calls a day, which would add to anyone's despair and depression.
  • (9) Thus in your own words you have said why it was utterly inappropriate for you to use the platform of a Pac hearing in this way.” He suggested that many professionals were “in despair at the lack of understanding and cheap haranguing which characterise your manner” after a series of hearings at which Hodge has led fierce interrogations of senior business figures and others.
  • (10) For Foos, arousal often competed with despair and sadness at what he witnessed.
  • (11) | Hugh Muir Read more Wherever Labour people gather to discuss how to break out of the vice tightening around the party, answers fail amid sighs of utter despair.
  • (12) The presumed interrelation between early rearing conditions and the neurobiological status of the infant that might lead to increased risk for despair is not understood.
  • (13) Erik Erikson used the film character of Dr. Borg from Wild Strawberries to flesh out his life cycle conception of ego integrity versus despair in old age.
  • (14) But the character – compounded of piercing sanity and existential despair, infinite hesitation and impulsive action, self-laceration and observant irony – is so multi-faceted, it is bound to coincide at some point with an actor’s particular gifts.
  • (15) He is an innately optimistic character as well as a clever one, and a man who needs to persuade his party not to despair.
  • (16) The present report deals with the effects of CBZ on two animal models of depression, namely the potentiation of amphetamine-induced anorexia, and the behavioral despair model.
  • (17) That is the secret of his repetitive name (like Nabokov's criminal hero in his novel Despair: Hermann Hermann, a misprint for Mr Man Mr Man).
  • (18) On the one hand, he genuinely sees himself as the great liberator of the poor, the man who wept at Britain’s modern-day penury on Glasgow’s Easterhouse estate; on the other, he is the champion of policies that have driven some of the poorest people in society into despair.
  • (19) Ovariectomy changed the swimming time course and increased the rhythmical index of depression without other serious disturbances of the behavioural "despair" test.
  • (20) I wanted to rediscover my joy in writing, I wanted to leave behind the heaviness and despair of Dead Europe .

Regret


Definition:

  • (v.) 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.
  • (v.) Dislike; aversion.
  • (v. t.) 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.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "We absolutely regret the setbacks Kim Dotcom has had since MegaUpload was taken offline, but we hope he as an entrepreneur will understand our side of the story and the decisions deliberately taken."
  • (2) Whilst we deeply regret all these incidents and acknowledge that the care of these patients could have been better, this is a relatively low number of incidents for a hospital of this size,” it said in a statement.
  • (3) The local MP, Rory Stewart, a mover and shaker on the broadband project, told me that he was desperate to get telehealth into Cumbria, but regretfully felt that it was not immediately doable, because the local council and healthcare community did not yet have the necessary expertise.
  • (4) An innovative approach to treatment planning is described in which a planned dose distribution is evaluated in terms of prescribed limits of acceptability, and any discrepancies (referred to as "regions of regret") are displayed in the form of a contour diagram in which colors are used to represent different types and degrees of regret.
  • (5) The allegations come weeks after Top Gear executives expressed regret over a remark made by Clarkson on the show's Burma special, broadcast in March.
  • (6) We deeply regret any instance which led to the Financial Ombudsman Service receiving incorrect or incomplete information from us.” Clydesdale is now reviewing all PPI complaints handled before August 2014 and will pay redress to any affected customers.
  • (7) The other example is of a woman who had a child who died at the age of 10 and expressed no regrets, but when questioned about whether she would have continued a pregnancy knowingly aware the baby would die in 10 years, the woman replied that she could not imagine how anyone could be so strong as to bear a child knowing the brevity of its life.
  • (8) She insists she has no regrets about dedicating herself to the man millions admired but few really got to know.
  • (9) Of the 28 parents who did not see the body, 17 subsequently stated their regret.
  • (10) In the prime minister's reply, he said it was with "enormous regret that I accept your resignation as the member of parliament for Corby and East Northamptonshire, a seat that had been Labour for 13 years before you.
  • (11) "We regret that Congress was forced to waste its time voting on a foolish bill that was premised entirely on false claims and ignorance," David Jenkins, an REP official, said in a statement.
  • (12) "We regret this decision by the Russian government," a senior Obama administration official said.
  • (13) These cases may represent a small percentage of the many sterilization operations that are performed each year, yet the fact that tubal sterilization is performed primarily on fit young women for "nonmedical" reasons makes it all the more important that women who will come to regret the procedure are identified and advised against it.
  • (14) "I regret that these things which are speculative and are not signed off on should be the source of discussion in other quarters."
  • (15) A woman accused of being the only surviving member of a murderous German neo-Nazi cell that remained undetected for over a decade, has broken her silence for the first time telling a court she was not involved in the planning or carrying out of the attacks but that she regretted failing to prevent them.
  • (16) "There was clearly inappropriate behaviour by some of the other guests and I deeply regret that this happened.
  • (17) The pair’s barrister, Charanjit Jutla, said both men were of good character and deeply regretted their conduct.
  • (18) He pointed out that Labour had not introduced such a radical examination in 1997, something he now regretted.
  • (19) Stewart surely sees himself as a ­future minister, though he regrets telling one journalist he wanted to be.
  • (20) Rupert Murdoch has said he regrets that his papers have turned against prime minister Gordon Brown – but believes they are right to do so.