What's the difference between lament and regret?

Lament


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To express or feel sorrow; to weep or wail; to mourn.
  • (v. t.) To mourn for; to bemoan; to bewail.
  • (v.) Grief or sorrow expressed in complaints or cries; lamentation; a wailing; a moaning; a weeping.
  • (v.) An elegy or mournful ballad, or the like.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Foster has long admired the speed with which these were built, and laments how Britain has dithered about London's airports.
  • (2) The screen-printing evening is taking place in Bushwick, an area known for – or lamented as – being the hippest part of Brooklyn.
  • (3) The debates and the campaign are increasingly covered as entertainment,” Rubio said, lamenting the networks’ hunt for ratings.
  • (4) Prior to the constitutional reform bill being introduced last July, Mandelson had lamented in an interview with the Financial Times that it was "not legally possible" for him to stand again as an MP.
  • (5) In an interview with the Qingdao Morning Post, one man lamented how in recent years his wife had frittered away 130,000 yuan (£13,500) of their hard-earned savings on Double Eleven purchases – thus dashing their dreams of buying a new home.
  • (6) If peerages are in effect being sold, the academics argue, “these could be thought of as the ‘average price’ per party.” Former Liberal Democrat peer, Matthew Oakeshott, who on leaving the Lords in May last year lamented that his efforts to uncover cash-for-honours deals across the parties had failed, told the Observer that the case against the system, and the parties, was now compelling.
  • (7) Alongside that political failing is a lamentable failure of the police command culture.
  • (8) Calling on Israel to “break with its lamentable track record” and hold wrongdoers responsible, the hard-hitting report commissioned by the UN human rights council lays most of the blame for Israel’s suspected violations at the feet of the country’s political and military leadership.
  • (9) He also expresses his lament that Australia’s $46 million bid, which earned one vote as the World Cup was controversially awarded to Qatar, never stood a chance.
  • (10) Farah addressed the media in Birmingham on Saturday, lamenting his name being “dragged through the mud” because of his links to Salazar, despite no allegations of wrongdoing against him personally.
  • (11) Although that guarantee is traditionally understood to prohibit intentional discrimination under existing laws, equal protection does not end there … to know the history of our nation is to understand its long and lamentable record of stymieing the right of racial minorities to participate in the political process.” Justice Elena Kagan, another of the court’s liberals, sat out of the case due to conflicts of interest.
  • (12) It's music that defines compassion, lament, and loss, to which you can only surrender in moist-eyed wonder.
  • (13) Or you might find it rather sad that someone who spends a lot of their time lamenting how society's unrealistic beauty standards are used to control and oppress women is a victim of those same standards.
  • (14) But recounting the story of one of the key experiences of European integration, the painter and decorator sounded elegiac, as if describing not current realities but those of a lamented past.
  • (15) The deputy prime minister, Bülent Arinc, one of the co-founders of the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development party (AKP), made the comment while lamenting the moral decline of modern society.
  • (16) For veterans of the women's movement there may be something unnerving about hearing the familiar slogans from Tory mouths – a sense that, as a female columnist lamented recently of Mensch, these late converts are "the wrong kind" of feminists.
  • (17) Wenger, though, warmed to a familiar theme when he lamented the importance that is attached to incoming signings.
  • (18) Hollande vowed to tackle France's standing as the most pessimistic country in Europe , "perhaps in the world", lamenting: "There are countries at war who are more optimistic than us."
  • (19) On Twitter , Wade lamented what he called another “act of senseless gun violence” which meant “4 kids lost their mom for NO REASON”.
  • (20) "We didn't make any mistakes today," Poyet lamented.

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.