The Oxford Thesaurus An A-Z Dictionary of Synonyms INTRO ...

What a sorrowful life some of those miners' families have led!
sorry adj. 1 regretful, penitent, remorseful, contrite,
conscience-stricken, guilt-ridden, repentant, apologetic,
penitential: I am sorry if I offended you. 2 abject,
miserable, depressing, wretched, pitiful, pitiable, pathetic,
deplorable, stark, grim, sordid, dismal, base, star-crossed,
ill-starred: Crackham has led a rather sorry life, most of it
as a vagrant. Agnes again made a sorry spectacle of herself at
the Christmas party. 3 See sorrowful, 1, above: I was indeed
sorry to learn that you are moving away, Peggy.
sort n. 1 kind, variety, type, class, classification, group,
category, brand, make, mark, stamp, description, mould, stripe,
ilk, feather, kidney, character, nature; manner, species: A
1928 Alfa-Romeo coup‚ is not exactly the right sort of car for a
family. Lewis is a person of a different sort. What sort of
person is he? 2 kind, type, manner: This sort of behaviour must
stop. 3 species, genus, family, phylum, subgenus, subspecies,
race, breed, strain, stock, kind, variety, type: Aberdeen Angus
is a better sort of beef for steaks. 4 person, individual, lot;
thing: He is not really such a bad sort. 5 of sorts. of a
sort, of a mediocre or passable or admissible or not (too) bad
or fair or sufficiently good or adequate or undistinguished or
indifferent kind or quality or proficiency: Yes, one might say
that he is a violinist of sorts. 6 out of sorts. not oneself,
not up to snuff, unwell, ailing, indisposed, (slightly) ill,
low, Colloq off one's feed, under the weather: He is out of
sorts after last night's revelries. 7 sort of. See somewhat,
above.
--v. 8 assort, classify, file, order, rank, grade, class,
categorize, separate, divide, combine, merge, arrange, organize,
systemize, systematize, catalogue, group, sort out: Sort these
names into alphabetical order. 9 describe, characterize,
categorize, cast, throw, combine, mould, type: I did not enjoy
being sorted together with thieves and murderers. 10 sort out.
a organize, set or put straight, straighten out, resolve, tidy
(up), clarify, clear up, solve; decide: Someone will have to
sort out how we are to proceed. b choose, select, separate,
divide: Sort out all the books that you want to keep from those
to be donated to the library.