Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In a pitiable manner.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb In a pitiable manner.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adverb in a manner arousing sympathy and compassion

Etymologies

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Examples

  • A mighty nation had failed pitiably, and the responsibility landed on us, and everyone in the world could see it.

    The Good Fight Walter F. Mondale 2010

  • A mighty nation had failed pitiably, and the responsibility landed on us, and everyone in the world could see it.

    The Good Fight Walter F. Mondale 2010

  • A mighty nation had failed pitiably, and the responsibility landed on us, and everyone in the world could see it.

    The Good Fight Walter F. Mondale 2010

  • The maddest of existentialists, one of the great surrealists of our time, the king of all he sees, Ali had never before appeared so vulnerable and fragile, so pitiably unmajestic, so far from the universe he claims as his alone.

    Jan Herman: Writers on Fighters Jan Herman 2011

  • The maddest of existentialists, one of the great surrealists of our time, the king of all he sees, Ali had never before appeared so vulnerable and fragile, so pitiably unmajestic, so far from the universe he claims as his alone.

    Jan Herman: Writers on Fighters Jan Herman 2011

  • He was shaking pitiably in the warm night, and down in the cabin, before he got his towel, Grief saw to it that a half-tumbler of whiskey was in his hand.

    THE PROUD GOAT OFALOYSIUS PANKBURN 2010

  • And finally you reveal the sham of yourself, the lip-service you pay to the idea that "[f] or a reviewer, I suppose all published work is fair game and, as writers, we should expect to take the good with the bad, review-wise" in your email, when you mewl pitiably that, "if I had received that email, I would have taken down the review."

    How Not to be a Writer Hal Duncan 2009

  • The logic-defying atmosphere of Bosch receded from his art, and although he continued to explore themes of vice and folly, laughter and delight, he increasingly presented these as affairs of flesh-and-blood people in recognizable surroundings, as in "The Blind Leading the Blind" 1568, whose sightless wanderers pitiably tumble one by one into a ditch.

    Earthy Grandeur Jonathan Lopez 2011

  • The parents are most pitiably wounded in their minds and we have no comfort to give.

    Letter 99 2009

  • Where we left off with the BBCA series was a wrenching, traumatic cliffhanger in which friendly ghost Annie Lorena Crichlow, so much more appealing than her Syfy counterpart is trapped in purgatory, reaching out to her friends through staticky TV screens as she pitiably weeps in a sinister waiting room and anxiously waits for whatever comes next.

    Roush Review: Being Human and More Weekend TV 2011

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