pitiful

So appalling or sad that one feels or should feel sorry for it; eliciting pity.

Adjective

  1. So appalling or sad that one feels or should feel sorry for it; eliciting pity.
    • Scotland has a pitiful climate.

    Synonyms: piteous pitisome ruthful

  2. Eliciting contempt.
  3. Of an amount or number: very small.
    • A pitiful number of students bothered to turn up.

    Synonyms: few meager paltry scant scanty thin

  4. Feeling pity; merciful.
    • Some ſay that Rauens foſter forlorne children, / The vvhilſt their ovvne birds famiſh in their neſts: / Oh be to me though thy hard hart ſay no, / Nothing ſo kinde but ſomething pittifull. - c. 1588–1593 (date written),...
    • Straightway, he now goes on to make a full confession; whereupon the mariners became more and more appalled, but still are pitiful. - 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition,...

    Synonyms: commiserative clement lenient merciable mercied merciful pitiful relentful ruthful safe pitying

Origin

From Middle English pityful, piteful, piteeful. By surface analysis, pit(i) + -ful.

Forms

pitifuller pitifullest pitifull

Synonyms

compassionate pathetic pathetisad piteous pitiable pitiful pitisome poor rueful ruthful snivelly sorry-ass

Antonyms

nonpathetic un-pathetic unpiteous unpitiable unrueful

Hypernyms

lamentable sympathetic

Related

pitiable pity pitying regretful

Derived

pitifulness unpitiful

Adverb

  1. In a pitiful manner; pitifully; piteously; pathetically.
    • ‘She followed ’em, cryin’ pitiful, to the old boat on the Wall[.]’ - 1906, Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill, London: Penguin Books, published 1994, page 194:

Forms

more pitiful most pitiful pitifull