Work cat.: Freeman, A. Woulda/coulda/shoulda : overcoming regrets, mistakes, and missed opportunities, c1989.

English dict. psych. & psychoan. ("an emotional response to one's remembrance of a past experience that one wishes might have been different")

Peng. dict. psych. ("feeling that, in retrospect, one might have behaved differently in the past, or that things might have turned out better had events gone differently")

Web. 3 ("sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one's control or power to repair")

Random House ("Regret is distress of mind, sorrow for what has been done or failed to be done." ... "Remorse involves pangs, qualms of conscience, a sense of guilt, regret, and repentance for sins committed, wrongs done or duty not performed")

Chaplin dict. psych.; Harré & Lamb encyc. dict. psych.; Evans psych.; Hennepin

Here are entered works on the emotional response or sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one's control or power to repair. Works on pangs of conscience and the sense of guilt and repentance for sins committed, wrongs done, or duty not performed are entered under Remorse.

Note under Remorse