Sorry is the word you say when you have done something wrong or got in someone's way. You tread on a foot on the bus and say sorry; you knock a glass off the table and say sorry before it lands.
As an adjective it means feeling regret or sadness: I'm sorry about your father, I'm sorry I shouted, we were sorry to hear the news. It takes ABOUT for a thing and FOR for what you did or for a person — sorry about the mess, sorry for shouting, sorry for the whole family. To feel sorry for someone is to pity them; to feel sorry for yourself is to sulk. A third sense catches learners out: a sorry state, a sorry sight, a sorry excuse — here sorry means poor and shabby, with no apology in it at all. And in Britain 'Sorry?' on a rising note means only 'say that again'.
1phrasesorrySaid to apologise for something you have done or for getting in someone's way.
“Sorry — I didn't see you standing there.”
2adjectiveregretFeeling regret or sadness about something.
“He was sorry he had ever mentioned it.”
3adjectivepityFeeling pity for someone.
“I felt sorry for the dog out in that weather.”
4adjectivepoorPoor, shabby or in a bad state.
“The garden was in a sorry state after the storm.”
5phraseaskUsed to ask someone to repeat what they have said.
“Sorry? The line went for a moment.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Sorry comes from Old English sāriġ, which meant grieving and sad, from a Germanic word for sadness that traces back to a root meaning hard, rough and painful. Cousins in the other Germanic languages still mean sore or inflamed. And despite how it looks, sorry has nothing to do with sorrow: the two words only happen to rhyme.
Proto-Indo-European
*seh₂yro — hard, rough, painful
Proto-Germanic
*sairagaz — sad
Proto-West Germanic
*sairag
Old English
sāriġ — feeling or expressing grief, sorry, grieved, sorrowful, sad, mournful, bitter
Middle English
sory
English, today
sorry
From Middle English sory, from Old English sāriġ (“feeling or expressing grief, sorry, grieved, sorrowful, sad, mournful, bitter”), from Proto-West Germanic sairag, from Proto-Germanic sairagaz (“sad”), from Proto-Indo-European seh₂yro (“hard, rough, painful”). Cognate with Scots sairie (“sad, grieved”), stq seerich (“sore, inflamed”), West Frisian searich (“sad, sorry”), Low German serig (“sick, scabby”), German - dialectal sehrig (“sore, sad, painful”), Swedish sårig. by surface analysis, sor(e) + sore + y. Unrelated to sorrow despite the similarity in form and meaning.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA