pitiful

comparative pitifuller · superlative pitifullest · alternative obsolete pitifull

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. archaicFeeling pity; merciful.

   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, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

   1 more example

   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), [William Shakespeare], The Most Lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus: […] (First Quarto), London: […] Iohn Danter, and are to be sold by Edward White & Thomas Millington, […], published 1594, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii], signature D3, verso

   Synonyms: commiserative, clement, lenient, merciable, mercied, merciful, relentful, ruthful

comparative more pitiful · superlative most pitiful · alternative obsolete pitifull

1. colloquialdialectalIn 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