Adjacent Words

Pitiful definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

PIT'IFUL, a. [See Pity.] Full of pity; tender; compassionate; having a heart to feel sorrow and sympathy for the distressed. James 5. 1 Peter 3. [This is the proper sense of the word.]
1. Miserable; moving compassion; as a sight most pitiful; a pitiful condition.
2. To be pitied for its littleness or meanness; paltry; contemptible; despicable.
That's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.
3. Very small; insignificant.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: inspiring mixed contempt and pity; "their efforts were pathetic"; "pitiable lack of character"; "pitiful exhibition of cowardice" [syn: pathetic, pitiable, pitiful]
2: bad; unfortunate; "my finances were in a deplorable state"; "a lamentable decision"; "her clothes were in sad shape"; "a sorry state of affairs" [syn: deplorable, distressing, lamentable, pitiful, sad, sorry]
3: deserving or inciting pity; "a hapless victim"; "miserable victims of war"; "the shabby room struck her as extraordinarily pathetic"- Galsworthy; "piteous appeals for help"; "pitiable homeless children"; "a pitiful fate"; "Oh, you poor thing"; "his poor distorted limbs"; "a wretched life" [syn: hapless, miserable, misfortunate, pathetic, piteous, pitiable, pitiful, poor, wretched]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Date: 14th century 1. archaic full of pity ; compassionate 2. a. deserving or arousing pity or commiseration b. exciting pitying contempt (as by meanness or inadequacy) <pitiful wages> • pitifully adverb • pitifulness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 causing pity. 2 contemptible. 3 archaic compassionate. Derivatives: pitifully adv. pitifulness n.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Pitiful Pit"i*ful, a. 1. Full of pity; tender-hearted; compassionate; kind; merciful; sympathetic. The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. --James v. 11. 2. Piteous; lamentable; eliciting compassion. A thing, indeed, very pitiful and horrible. --Spenser. 3. 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. --Shak. Syn: Despicable; mean; paltry. See Contemptible. -- Pit"i*ful*ly, adv. -- Pit"i*ful*ness, n.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. Someone or something that is pitiful is so sad, weak, or small that you feel pity for them. It was the most pitiful sight I had ever seen. ADJ • pitifully His legs were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk. ADV 2. If you describe something as pitiful, you mean that it is completely inadequate. The choice is pitiful and the quality of some of the products is very low... ADJ [disapproval] • pitifully State help for the mentally handicapped is pitifully inadequate. ADV: ADV adj, ADV with v

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

pit'-i-fool: As found in Scripture, means "full of pity"; it is expressed by rachamani, from rachamim (plural of racham), "bowels," "compassion" (La 4:10 the King James Version, its only occurrence in the Old Testament), "The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children." In Jas 5:11, we have the beautiful saying, The Lord is very pitiful (the Revised Version (British and American) "full of pity") and of tender mercy," where "very pitiful" is the translation of polusplagchnos, literally, "of many bowels," a word which does not occur elsewhere; it might be translated "large-hearted" or "tender-hearted." In Ecclesiasticus 2:11, we have "The Lord, is .... very, pitiful" (oiktirmon); eusplagchnos, well-hearted," "compassionate," "full of pity," occurs in 1Pe 3:8, "Love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous," the Revised Version (British and American) "loving as brethren, tenderhearted, humble-minded." The word is found in The Prayer of Manasseh 7; Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Zeb 8 2.

W. L. Walker

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Compassionate, tender, tenderhearted, sympathetic, kind, merciful, lenient, mild. 2. Miserable, pitiable, wretched, deplorable, lamentable. 3. Mean, base, vile, low, paltry, sorry, abject, rascally, contemptible, despicable, insignificant, worthless.

Moby Thesaurus

abominable, affecting, arrant, atrocious, awful, base, beastly, beggarly, beneath contempt, beneath one, blameworthy, brutal, cheap, cheesy, common, contemptible, crummy, debasing, degrading, demeaning, deplorable, despicable, detestable, dire, disgraceful, disgusting, doleful, dreadful, egregious, enormous, fetid, filthy, flagrant, foul, fulsome, gaudy, gimcracky, grievous, gross, gutter, hateful, heartrending, heinous, horrible, horrid, humiliating, humiliative, infamous, infra dig, infra indignitatem, insignificant, lamentable, little, loathsome, lousy, mean, meretricious, miserable, monstrous, moving, nasty, nefarious, noisome, notorious, obnoxious, odious, offensive, opprobrious, outrageous, paltry, pathetic, piteous, pitiable, poor, rank, regrettable, reprehensible, repulsive, rotten, rubbishy, rueful, sad, scandalous, schlock, scrubby, scruffy, scummy, scurvy, scuzzy, shabby, shameful, shocking, shoddy, small, sordid, sorry, squalid, terrible, too bad, touching, trashy, trifling, trumpery, two-for-a-cent, two-for-a-penny, twopenny, twopenny-halfpenny, unbecoming, unclean, unimportant, unworthy of one, valueless, vile, villainous, woeful, worst, worthless, wretched