PITIFUL • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Pitiful

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/pˈɪtəfəl/ Listen

adjective

Pitiful adj.

Full of pity; tender-hearted; compassionate; kind; merciful; sympathetic. "The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy."

Piteous; lamentable; eliciting compassion. "A thing, indeed, very pitiful and horrible."

To be pitied for littleness or meanness; miserable; paltry; contemptible; despicable. "That's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it."

Synonyms: Despicable; mean; paltry. See Contemptible.

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Etymology of 'Pitiful'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pitiful" Quotes from Famous Books

... vessel have paid and well-treated sailors, your Majesty would come to have all that at no more expense than that of the time while you would employ them; and these your vassals, the natives of this country, would have more relief from the burden; and surely it is pitiful to see the burdens that they carry, and what ...

— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various

... harmless lunatic and to take no notice of his eccentricities. Great interest was taken in the case for a time, and even Mitchell put in his oar and tried all sorts of ways to assist the Mystery in his weak, helpless, and almost pitiful endeavours to recollect who he was. A similar case happened to appear in the papers at this time, and the thing caught on to such an extent that The Oracle was moved to impart some advice from ...

— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... drivin' us out into a cold, unfeelin' world where we got to either steal or starve to death? There wouldn't be one tenth as much stealin' and murderin' as there is if they didn't force us into it. Why, doggone it, I've seen some of the most cruel and pitiful sights you ever heard of up there at Sing Sing. Fellers leadin' a perfectly honest life suddenly chucked out into a world full of vice and iniquity and forced—absolutely forced,—into a life of crime. ...

— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon

... for years about the pitiful condition of the 'drammer,' but did he ever write a play that saw ...

— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh

... the city. It was but another form of his old distress to behold that array of prisoners, shuffling timorously through the dust of the road, like a flock of sheep with the dog at their heels. There is no spectacle in all the world more pitiful than that of a column of vanquished troops being marched off into captivity under guard of their conquerors, without arms, their empty hands hanging idly at their sides; and these men, clad in rags and tatters, besmeared with the filth in which they had lain for more than a week, ...

— The Downfall • Emile Zola

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