Etymologically
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sorry

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /ˈsɒr.i/, US /ˈsɑːr.i/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sori (earlier sari), inherited from Old English sārig (“distressed, grieved, full of sorrow”),[2][3][4] formed from sār (“pain, sore”), the source of sore, with the suffix -ig.[2][5][6] Etymonline reconstructs Proto-Germanic *sairiga- (“painful”).[3] Its cognates include Old Saxon sērag and Old High German sērag.[4][7][3] The SOED and Etymonline note that the change and shortening of the vowel, from a to o, came by association with the unrelated word sorrow.[4][3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pained at heart, distressed, full of grief: Old English sārig, about 725 in Beowulf,[2] or about 888.[8] Middle English sari appears in 1114.[2]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline notes that Old English sārig is not found in the physical sense of sore.[3] Sorry for something is late Old English.[3] “Repentant, remorseful” is from about 1200,[3] and “causing distress, grievous” from before 1225.[8] “Wretched, worthless, poor”, as in a sorry sight, is from about 1250.[2][3] Word Origins traces the weakening of the sense from “full of grief” to “sad in sympathy”, then “full of regret”, and finally a simple apology by the mid-19th century;[9] Etymonline finds sorry alone as an apology, short for I'm sorry, suggested by 1834.[3] Sorry about that was popularized in the mid-1960s by the US television show Get Smart.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 725 – Old English sārig (Beowulf).[2]
  • 1114 – Middle English sari.[2]
  • c. 1200 – repentant.[3]
  • before 1225 – grievous.[8]
  • c. 1250 – wretched, worthless.[2]
  • 1834 – sorry! as an apology.[3]
  • mid-1960s – sorry about that.[3]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Feeling sympathy, pity or regret.
  2. Worthless, inferior or pitiful: a sorry excuse.
  3. (archaic) Causing grief; grievous.

Interjection

  1. Used to apologize, or to ask someone to repeat something.

Word family

  • sorrily
  • sorriness
  • unsorry
  • sorrow
  • sorrowful
  • sore

Usage notes

In dialect, sorry is also a familiar form of address to a man or boy, an alteration of sirrah, from the late 18th century.[4][8]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  6. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press