sorry

The story

1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*seh₂yro“hard, rough, painful”
2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*sairagaz“sad”
3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*sairag
4. Old English · inherited fromsāriġ“feeling or expressing grief, sorry, grieved, sorrowful, sad, mournful, bitter”
5. Middle English · inherited fromsory
6. English todaysorry

From Middle English sory, from Old English sāriġ (“feeling or expressing grief, sorry, grieved, sorrowful, sad, mournful, bitter”), from Proto-West Germanic *sairag, from Proto-Germanic *sairagaz (“sad”), from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂yro (“hard, rough, painful”). Cognate with Scots sairie (“sad, grieved”), Saterland Frisian seerich (“sore, inflamed”), West Frisian searich (“sad, sorry”), Low German serig (“sick, scabby”), German dialectal sehrig (“sore, sad, painful”), Swedish sårig. By surface analysis, sor(e) + -y. Unrelated to sorrow despite the similarity in form and meaning.