"Sorry to say . . ."

The answer

ALAS

4 letters. See every clue for this answer on the ALAS answer page.

Used 84 times across 26 distinct years; most recently in 2026. It appears in 19 publications in the xd corpus. Frequency and last-seen figures come from the xd crossword corpus only.

Other answers for this clue

The same clue has also been answered these ways in the xd corpus. Answers inside this pilot link to their own answer page.

• SADLY (24 uses in xd)
• IFEAR (10 uses in xd)
• IMAFRAID (2 uses in xd)
• ITSASHAME (1 uses in xd)

Other clues for ALAS

Every other clue in this pilot answered by ALAS, most used first.

• "Woe is me!" - used 255 times, most recently in 2026
• "Sad to say ..." - used 250 times, most recently in 2026
• Word of woe - used 143 times, most recently in 2026
• "Too bad!" - used 136 times, most recently in 2025
• Regrettably - used 126 times, most recently in 2026
• Word of regret - used 124 times, most recently in 2025
• "Ah, me!" - used 112 times, most recently in 2023
• "Sadly ..." - used 91 times, most recently in 2026
• "Unfortunately ..." - used 84 times, most recently in 2026

Related clues

Pilot clues of the same answer length that share a word with this clue, or match its answer pattern when no word is shared. Most used first.

• "What ___ can I say?" - ELSE, used 116 times
• Say it isn't so - DENY, used 113 times
• Say it's so - AVER, used 97 times
• "You can say that again!" - AMEN, used 93 times
• Feel sorry for - PITY, used 89 times

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