sad to say

sad to say

1. Sadly; unfortunately.

   Sad to say, I can’t remember anything else about him. Only that voice, whispering in my ear.

   • 1944 November and December, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—II”, in Railway Magazine, page 341:

     However, some of us did make quite reasonable patterns and had the satisfaction of seeing castings produced from them but, sad to say, many of these efforts were used as firewood after they had left the shop.

• Used especially as a sentence adverb.

• strange to say

• mirabile dictu