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  1. pathetic love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Arousing or capable of arousing sympathetic sadness and compassion: "The old, rather shabby room struck her as extraordinarily pathetic” ( John Galsworthy).
  2. adj. Arousing or capable of arousing scornful pity.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Expressing or showing passion; passionate.
  2. Full of pathos; affecting or moving the feelings; exciting pity, sorrow, grief, or other tender emotion; affecting: as, a pathetic song or discourse; pathetic expostulation.
  3. In anatomy, trochlear: in designation of or reference to the fourth crania1 nerve.
  4. n. A trochlear or pathetic nerve; a patheticus.
  5. Trochlear: in reference to the superior oblique muscle.
  6. n. Same as patheticus, 2.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Arousing pity, sympathy, or compassion.
  2. adj. Arousing scornful pity or contempt, often due to miserable inadequacy.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. obsolete Expressing or showing anger; passionate.
  2. adj. Affecting or moving the tender emotions, esp. pity or grief; full of pathos.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. inspiring mixed contempt and pity
  2. adj. inspiring scornful pity
  3. adj. deserving or inciting pity

Etymologies

  1. From Latin patheticus, from Ancient Greek παθητικός (pathetikos, "subject to feeling, capable of feeling, impassioned"), from παθητός (pathetos, "one who has suffered, subject to suffering"), from πάσχω (paskho, "to suffer"). (Wiktionary)
  2. French pathétique, from Late Latin pathēticus, from Greek pathētikos, sensitive, from pathētos, liable to suffer, from pathos, suffering. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

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  • Alphabetized 1) Ridiculous

    2) From Greek "Pathos = Pain", which causes pain. Jan 5, 2011

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‘pathetic’ has been looked up 3569 times, loved by 1 person, added to 46 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 15.