regretfully
"regretfully" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“regretfully” is uncommon English (frequency #53,205 among 3,094 “R” headwords), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #53,205
- frequency rank, English
- 3,094
- “R” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - In a regretful manner, with regret.
Corpus desk
Index EN-regretfully · regretfully · English
regretfully · rank #53,205 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #53,205
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,094
- PHOTO-FINISH refunding
Nearest frequency peer: refunding (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “regretfully”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- rdf
rdf
46,800 corpus weight
- reconfigura…
reconfiguration
46,799 corpus weight
- reforestati…
reforestation
46,798 corpus weight
- refunding
refunding
46,797 corpus weight
- regretfully
regretfully
46,796 corpus weight
- relishing
relishing
46,793 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “regretfully” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | regretfully |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| Letters | 11 |
| Frequency rank | #53,205 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “regretfully” in English
Rare enough to double-check
regretfully is uncommon English at frequency #53,205 among 3,094 “R” headwords, classed as anadverb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for regretfully in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From regretful + -ly. The correct English form is regretfully, spelled R-E-G-R-E-T-F-U-L-L-Y.
Definition
- 1In a regretful manner, with regret.
- 2Unfortunately, in a manner inspiring or deserving regret; used only as a sentence adverb (to introduce and modify an entire sentence).
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how regretfully appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
So after learning a great deal about iron founding and much more about pike fishing, one regretfully took leave of a shop full of kindly characters and proceeded to a worse lot of odours in the brass foundry.
Etymology
From regretful + -ly.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "regretfully", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 11 letters (nearest by frequency rank).