How to use alas in a sentence

40 example sentences · interjection, noun

Alas means used to express sorrow, regret, compassion, grief, resignation, or disappointment. Example: “I wanted to catch the last bus home, but alas, I was ten minutes late and had to take a taxi instead.”

Examples of alas by meaning

interjectionUsed to express sorrow, regret, compassion, grief, resignation, or disappointment.

I wanted to catch the last bus home, but alas, I was ten minutes late and had to take a taxi instead.

nounA type of geological depression formed by the subsidence of permafrost, sometimes (partially) filled by a lake.

Another bus tour went to the east, and alasses and pingos were examined on the terraces.1973, Arctic Bulletin, page 35
Alasses are characteristics of the thermal degradation stages of permafrost.2007, Mary Chapman, The Geology of Mars: Evidence from Earth-Based Analogs, page 292
The exact extent of change is highly dependent on the specific context of each alas's physical characteristics.2019, Takeshi Ohta, Tetsuya Hiyama, Yoshihiro Iijima, Water-Carbon Dynamics in Eastern Siberia, page 195

More sentences with alas

For the diners, the effects of the chicken cacciatore, alas, were cacatory.From the entry cacatory
Alas, the delivery boy is on the clock; he could and would work much faster on commission!From the entry on the clock
He tries hard to tell a good joke but, alas, he does not do it well.From the entry do well
Alas, he was immune to my charms.From the entry immune
Alas that distant event isn't within my recollection anymore.From the entry recollection
Alas, always a costar but never a star.From the entry costar
But alas, the people arose and their voices demanded my release.2025 January 29, u/DryTart978, “Oh. My. Mao.”, in Reddit, r/Ultraleft, archived from the original on 13 Aug 2025. From the entry trvke
But alas, our education system seems to think finding our soulmates isn't as essential as algebra.2024 April 8, Lydia Wang, Morgan Sullivan, Rachel Varina, “24 Best Hinge Prompts to Actually Help Your Matches Get to Know You”, in…. From the entry quadratic equation
Alas, I have no pull at Netflix, and neither seems to be coming soon.2020 March 27, Bettina Makalintal, “Samin Nosrat's 'Home Cooking' Podcast Will Make Your Quarantine Cooking Better”, in VICE, archived…. From the entry pull
Alas, others have not widely joined in, and no “Kanyeing” trend has taken off.2016, Ryan M. Milner, The World Made Meme: Public Conversations and Participatory Media, Cambridge, Mass.; London: The MIT Press, →ISBN…. From the entry Kanye
But it’s doomed, alas, like all attempts to hypnotise the play-goer with twiddlesome tricks.2012, Lloyd Evans, There will be blood. From the entry twiddlesome
Alas, the story is secondary to the system, and in a tactics RPG, the system is everything.2008 June, Heather Campbell, “Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift”, in Play Magazine, page 68. From the entry tactics RPG
Alas, geriatrics and convalescent homes, however regal, don't rake it in like moneyed metrosexuals.2006, The Guardian, 12 Aug 06. From the entry rake it in
Alas, radiation from the machines turned the humans into midgetlike idiots whom Shaver called the "deros."2006, Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, page 117. From the entry midgetlike
Alas, Hancock did not have his receipt, so the shop owner told him to hit the bricks.2004 September 20, “No NHL? No NHL!!!”, in Washington Post, retrieved 24 Jun 2009, page D02. From the entry hit the bricks
The full-length Dracula on his back, alas, is but one third complete.2004, Steve Rushin, The Caddie Was a Reindeer and Other Tales of Extreme Recreation, →ISBN. From the entry drac
Alas, experience teaches that there are those immune from such cogency.2001 September 22, Yzerok, “From the Memory Hole”, in humanities.philosophy.objectivism (Usenet), archived from the original on 16 Apr 2026. From the entry confusery
"There lies Jack Spratt; alas, he could eat no more fat.2000, Lewis Burke Frumkes, Metapunctuation: When a Comma Isn't Enough, page 128. From the entry begrieve
Alas, too often the Eagles wide receiver reacts as though he has been asked to dance.2000 September 19, Bill Lyon, “Eagles can’t catch the ball…”, in Lancaster New Era, 124th year, number 38,636, Lancaster, Pa., page C-6. From the entry tippy-tap
But Erica Mann Jong is, alas, just as patriarchal as Erica Jong.1994, Erica Jong, Fear of Fifty, page 140. From the entry erica
This is the world--the only world, alas--in which Carpenter's antiyuppie and anti-Reagan satire has meaning.1988 November 18, Jonathan Rosenbaum, “Liberals Kick Ass”, in Chicago Reader. From the entry antiyuppie
The image-surfeited are likely to find sunsets corny; they now look, alas, too much like photographs.1977, Susan Sontag, “The Heroism of Vision”, in On Photography, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 77. From the entry surfeit
But alas for aval ambitions; Sukarno turned out to be a visionary of quite a different sort.1973, Wilfred T. Neill, Twentieth-Century Indonesia, Columbia University Press, published 1973, →ISBN, page 299. From the entry aval
Alas I our small office staff boasted no bird fundi and the bird remained unindentified.1972, The Rhodesia Science News, volume 6, page 358. From the entry fundi
Why live I wretch alas (quoth he) where all good luck is geazon?1969, George Gascoigne, “Weedes”, in John William Cunliffe, editor, The Complete Works of George Gascoigne, Digitized edition, published…. From the entry geazon
Alas against such terrors as this all steelings of the heart are absolutely useless.1968, Francis Stewart Leland Lyons, John Dillon: a biography, page 19. From the entry steeling
The nightingale's sorrow that ends with the light Brings, grieved, no love nearer, alas, to the sight.1961, Raymond Ellsworth Larsson, Book Like a Bow Curved. From the entry yester-morrow
It's a breath of old times, alas! all forgotten in these fly-away days.1913, Jack London, “chapter III”, in The Valley of the Moon. From the entry fly-away
"Alas!" he shouted, for we were at a rapid, "my savee makee good chow.1911, Edwin Dingle, Across China on Foot. From the entry makee
But alas, he always came up empty.2016 September 2, Kelvin Dorsey, “Day 2: Struggling Young Arizonan Salesman Goes from Zero-to-Hero in Less Than a Year!”, in 81 Days to…. From the entry nopesy
Alas, your delicious sandwich has been slain.2013, Kazerad, Katia: Follow captain, in: Prequel -or- Making a Cat Cry: The Adventure (webcomic), May 08 2013. From the entry porcine
Alas, I fear, Netflix will soon break my heart.2012, Kaihan Krippendorff, “Today's Business Revolution”, in Outthink the Competition: How a New Generation of Strategists Sees Options…. From the entry aa
Alas, you'll even see “text” files where some lines have one encoding but other lines have different encodings.2012, Tom Christiansen, brian d foy, Larry Wall, Jon Orwant, Programming Perl, O'Reilly, →ISBN, page 285. From the entry mojibake
Alas, I dance to a different tune.2012, anonymous author, The Erotic Memoirs of a Lusty Victorian Rake: Volume 2, →ISBN. From the entry dance to a different tune
But alas, we were directed to climb over the ship to Angels 12 to provide protection to the ship.2011, James A. Oleson, In Their Own Words - the Final Chapter, page 93. From the entry angel
Alas! art is long and life is short!2011, Benjamin Franklin with John Bigelow, The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Written by Himself. From the entry art is long, life is short

Meaning of alas

interjection Used to express sorrow, regret, compassion, grief, resignation, or disappointment.
noun A type of geological depression formed by the subsidence of permafrost, sometimes (partially) filled by a lake.

Full definition of alas

Questions about alas in a sentence

How do you use alas in a sentence?: Alas is used as an interjection and noun. For example: “I wanted to catch the last bus home, but alas, I was ten minutes late and had to take a taxi instead.”
What is a short sentence with alas?: “Alas, I dance to a different tune.”
What does alas mean?: Alas means used to express sorrow, regret, compassion, grief, resignation, or disappointment.

Adapted from Wiktionary: alas (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use alas in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/alas. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.