rue
verb
Simple meaning
To repent of or regret.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
rooIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹu
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
transitive
To repent of or regret (some past action or event); to wish that a past action or event had not taken place.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To repent of or regret (some past action or event); to wish that a past action or event had not taken place.
Used this way, rue is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use rue
- “She will surely rue the day she made that poor decision.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Any of various herbs of the genus Thalictrum.
Tall bushy European perennial grown for its pinnate foliage and slender spikes of blue flowers.
Perennial subshrub of eastern North America having downy leaves yellowish and rose flowers and.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to repent of or regret (some past action
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.