Remorseful means deeply sorry for something you did wrong. He seemed genuinely remorseful. She was remorseful about it for years.
It is stronger than sorry and more specific than regretful: remorse is about harm you caused, where regret can be about a missed chance. The word appears constantly in court reporting, because whether a defendant is remorseful affects sentencing, and showed no remorse is among the heaviest phrases a judge can use. The noun is remorse, which is uncountable, and remorseless means the opposite in one sense and relentless in another — a remorseless attack has nothing to do with guilt.
1adjectiveremorsefulDeeply sorry for something you did wrong.
“He was remorseful and it was too late to matter.”
remorseful is a state of regret.
Also accepted in games: regretful
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)merd-
Latin
remordeō — to torment, vex
Medieval Latin
remorsus
Old French
remors
Middle English
remors
English
remorse
English, today
remorseful
From remorse + -ful. remorse First attested circa 14th century as Middle English remors, from Old French remors, from Medieval Latin remorsus, from Latin remordeō (“to torment, vex”) literally “to bite back”, from re + mordeō. More at remord.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA