What's the difference between nostalgia and regret?

Nostalgia


Definition:

  • (n.) Homesickness; esp., a severe and sometimes fatal form of melancholia, due to homesickness.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Ultimately, the judgments combine to make a particularly peculiar melange: among the plaintiffs there is a mix of economic pessimism and insecure nationalism with a shot of nostalgia for the Deutschmark.
  • (2) It's also, clearly, the beginning of an annual TV tradition, a comforting pool of lamplit nostalgia amid all the sequins and celebrity hoo-hah, with Geoffrey Palmer flapping his jowls exasperatedly as he realises he's packed the wrong rectal tube.
  • (3) As I enjoy my individual freedom in South Korea, I don’t really have any nostalgia for North Korea.
  • (4) Breathes has been smoking cannabis for more than half his life, but he has no nostalgia for the old days, no regrets about the industry becoming commercialised.
  • (5) Duran Duran, Phil Collins and the Human League helped Absolute Radio top 4 million listeners across its seven-strong network for the first time, powered by a strong performance by nostalgia station Absolute 80s.
  • (6) She has also impressed the rank and file with her tough talking to the Police Federation, vowing to break its power and bringing to an end its closed-shop practices, sending many Tories of a certain age into ecstasies of Thatcherite nostalgia.
  • (7) In Ethiopia the word for nostalgia is tizita , Wildschut points out, which is also the word for a style of music.
  • (8) As Trump’s dystopia becomes a reality, the nostalgia for his calm, measured and consensual solutions has begun early.
  • (9) 12.21pm BST A-level results always seem to provoke outpourings of nostalgia.
  • (10) Yet, there is no doubt that All Star has been targeted for its specific qualities – the main ones being its feelgood nostalgia value and a laughably exuberant pop-punk style that feels totally earnest.
  • (11) Sentamu came here as a refugee, an asylum seeker, and has a real passion for the underdog, yet in some ways his dream of Britain is closer to the back-to-the-50s nostalgia of Ukip (although not their policies) than to the modern Labour party.
  • (12) The obsession of "For Fatherland and Freedom" to pay public homage to the Latvian-SS Legion in contradiction to all historical logic and sensitivity to Nazi crimes is not a product of ostensibly harmless nostalgia as Pickles would have us believe, but part of a rather insidious plan to gain recognition for a perversely distorted version of European history which will officially equate Communism with Nazism.
  • (13) The anxieties fuelling France’s populism echo those of Geert Wilders and Donald Trump supporters, including “democratic fatigue” and nostalgia for how life supposedly once was.
  • (14) He concludes: "If journalists, for reasons of nostalgia, inertia, confusion or misplaced loyalty, choose to keep swimming with the privacy intruders, they may well drown with them."
  • (15) Nostalgia has had its niche in pop ever since 70s stars such as Showaddywaddy and the late Les Gray of Mud cheerfully recycled the rhythms and quiffs of the 50s.
  • (16) Berman remarked in 2000 that "I confess (and it isn't hard to detect), I am guilty of nostalgia for the 60s, days of my youth."
  • (17) Some express nostalgia for the manicured city centre of the old days.
  • (18) Nostalgia was the soldiers’ malady – a state of mind that made life in the here and now a debilitating process of yearning for that which had been lost: rose-tinted peace, happiness, loved ones.
  • (19) In part, it began as a bit of nostalgia for him – "I did it every Friday night when I was at college.
  • (20) Surely any warm glow we might feel about HMV nostalgia deserves dousing with the news that gift vouchers some bought at the shop over Christmas are now invalid .

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.