Definition of "rue" []

• To feel regret, remorse, or sorrow for. (verb-transitive)
• To feel regret, remorse, or sorrow. (verb-intransitive)
• Sorrow; regret: "To their rue, the Social Democrats have to acknowledge that the Conservative-Liberal coalition has captured the center where elections are won” ( Elizabeth Pond). (noun)
• Any of various aromatic southwest Asian or Mediterranean plants of the genus Ruta, especially the ornamental R. graveolens, having bipinnately compound leaves that yield an acrid volatile oil formerly used in medicine. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Ophelia wishes to remind the Queen of the sorrow and contrition she ought to feel for her unlawful marriage; and that she may wear her rue with peculiar propriety on Sundays, when she solicits pardon for the crime which she has so much occasion to _rue_ and repent of."
• "Columbine was emblematical of forsaken lovers.] [Footnote IV. 27: _There's rue for you; and here's some for me: -- we may call it herb of grace o 'Sundays: _] Probably a quibble is meant here, as _rue_ anciently signified the same as"
• "I can really recommend the Cremerie Polidor in rue Monsieur le Prince for an authentic bistro experience and the food is good and generous."