Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- interjection Used to express sorrow, regret, grief, compassion, or apprehension of danger or evil.
from The Century Dictionary.
- An exclamation expressive of sorrow, grief, pity, concern, or apprehension of evil: in old writers sometimes followed by the day or the while: as, alas the day, alas the while. See
alackaday .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- interjection An exclamation expressive of sorrow, pity, or apprehension of evil; -- in old writers, sometimes followed by
day orwhite ;alas the day , likealack a day , oralas the white .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- interjection Used to
express sorrow ,regret ,compassion orgrief .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adverb by bad luck
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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About the time Carver was recovering from rejection of that story, Samuel Vaughn at Doubleday returned a manuscript of stories.53 Ray asked Lish to take a look at it, noting that he was sticking with his title alas, he does not say what it was after rejecting “for instance, ‘Bad Check, His Mama, and Beautiful Songs.’”
Raymond Carver Carol Sklenicka 2009
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Cameron, alas, is merely reflecting the primitive state of the British debate on the EU.
Linkspam for 28-5-2009 nwhyte 2009
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My mother, alas, is still with us, I say alas because passed a certain point prolongation approaches uncivility ( 'un' - is also valid, I looked it up.)
Archive 2009-08-01 2009
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The same, alas, is rarely true of technology, where things going wrong are the order of the day.
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The only other nonwhite face on tap, alas, is the unguided missile Michael Steele, its new national chairman.
Sunday Reading 2009
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This cup, alas, is unuseable, because it has a longitudinal crack inside.
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This, alas, is going to end up throwing off the "contest," because if I declare myself done at 60,000 or 65,000 words, that's not fair to Kelly would will surely write exactly as many words as required.
Day in the Life of an Idiot lyda222 2009
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This cup, alas, is unuseable, because it has a longitudinal crack inside.
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This, alas, is not a reasonable way to write a novel.
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That sort of thinking, alas, is why most of the population has such a hard time connecting with the tech world, and why many view computers and kindred devices with fear and suspicion.
Cory Doctorow Shouldn’t Buy an iPad, but Maybe You Should « Steve Wildstrom on Tech 2010
sonofgroucho commented on the word alas
Not to mention alack.
December 12, 2007
lea commented on the word alas
Down! (=Finnish) as you would say to a dog, for example. Or to an eager admirer in a bar, around the wee hours.
March 5, 2009
bilby commented on the word alas
Particularly an eager, admiring dog.
March 5, 2009
lea commented on the word alas
To an eager, admiring dog I usually say 'ALAS', with a very low and determined voice. (If you start to laugh - or even worse - giggle after that, you only get your face licked. I hope to God it never happens in a bar with an eager admirer. :o})
March 5, 2009