Regretter

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who feels sorrow or remorse for past decisions made during their life
2. An individual who experiences sadness or disappointment about choices made before
3. A person who looks back on previous decisions with feelings of remorse or sadness

Etymology: A regretter is, at first glance, a simple thing: someone who regrets, with the agentive suffix "-er" added to the verb. The surprise lies in the verb's ancestry. "Regret" came into English from Old French "regreter", and that French verb was built on an earlier Old French "gretter", a word borrowed from a Frankish source and related to the Germanic root that gives English "greet" in one of its old senses. The original idea was closer to crying out or lamenting over a loss, and only later did it narrow toward inward remorse. The "-er" ending is older and more straightforward. It descends from Latin "-arius", which denoted a person connected with a trade or role, and it reached English through Old French "-ier" and Middle English "-er". English speakers have been forming agent nouns this way for centuries, so "regretter" simply joins a long line of words such as "writer" and "speaker."

Synonyms: repentant, sorrowful

Antonyms: content, satisfied