alas

alternative helas

1. Used 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.

   4 more examples

   Helas I lamente the dull abuſyd brayne The enfatuate fantaſies the wytles wylfulnes Of on and hothyr at me that haue dyſdayne

   c. 1521, John Skelton, Speke Parott

   Alas poore Yorick, I knew him Horatio, a fellow of infinite Ieſt; of moſt excellent fancy, he hath borne me on his backe a thouſand times: And how abhorred my Imagination is, my gorge riſes at it.

   c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i], page 278, column 1

   Standing afarre off for the feare of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great citie Babylon, that mighty citie: for in one houre is thy iudgement come.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Revelation 18:10

   The thorough and shameless commercialism of Sex has alas! been reserved for what is called "Christian civilization," and with it (perhaps as a necessary consequence) Prostitution and Syphilis have grown into appalling evils, accompanied by a gigantic degradation of social standards, and upgrowth of petty Philistinism and niaiserie.

   1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 188

   Synonyms: alack, oh well

plural alases · plural alasses

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

   Alternative forms: alass, alaas

   4 more examples

   […] alasses probably exist south of the Yukon Flats. Another bus tour went to the east, and alasses and pingos were examined on the terraces.

   1973, Arctic Bulletin, page 35

   […] alasses. They are formed when a large quantity of ground ice thaws (up to 80% by volume) in permafrost. Alasses are characteristics of the thermal degradation stages of permafrost. Their subsequent thaw induces a lowering of the [terrain].

   2007, Mary Chapman, The Geology of Mars: Evidence from Earth-Based Analogs, page 292

   […] permafrost (yedoma), the large volume loss that accompanies the melt of excess ice to produce an alas is irreversible, and secondary thermokarst lakes developed in ice-rich epigenetic permafrost on the alas floor are likely to be much smaller and shallower than the original thermokarst lake.

   2018, Colin K. Ballantyne, Periglacial Geomorphology, page 129

   […] permafrost underneath has been thawing, due to both the warming climate and shifting hydrological processes. 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