regrettablyadv.

1853 E. E. Crowe Charles Delmer I. vii. 141 The gay and witty Lady Louisa Merton called him, at times, Monsieur l'Abbé, so much, as she said, did he resemble that singular and most regrettably defunct personage of French memoirs.

1896 Naturalist 50 The writer's correspondence with him (regrettably, yet naturally)..ceased.

1952 G. H. Dury Map Interpr. i. 4 Land quality..has long been regrettably neglected.

1979 Jrnl. Royal Soc. Arts July 511/1 Sniffy comments of a patronizing nature..so regrettably sprinkled throughout earlier books.

2003 P. Reizin Don't try this at Home ii. 48 A vehicle with a regrettably high mileage.

1872 W. M. Gomm Let. in F. C. Gomm Let. & Jrnl. Sir W. M. Gomm (1881) ii. 32 Entered, I believe, in its archives by some lady presumably young, regrettably before my time.

1908 U. B. Phillips Hist. Transportation in Eastern Cotton Belt 397 The ante-bellum work of H. V. Poor..was, regrettably, never carried beyond volume one.

1958 R. Liddell Morea iii. ii. 238 There [i.e. at Cerigo] monasteries are, regrettably, regarded merely as summer camps for visitors.

1988 New Scientist 28 Apr. 67/4 Regrettably, ‘academic’, or ‘pure’ geophysics courses are notoriously short on social context.

2001 J. Le Fanu They don't know what's Wrong xii. 196 Regrettably there is no really satisfactory treatment.