Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Full of sorrow; rueful.
  • adjective Causing sorrow or pity.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Full of sorrow; sorrowful; woful; rueful.
  • Causing ruth or pity; piteous.
  • Full of ruth or pity; merciful; compassionate.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Pitiful; tender.
  • adjective Full of sorrow; woeful.
  • adjective Causing sorrow.

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

  • adjective Full of sorrow; sorrowful; woeful; rueful.
  • adjective Causing pity; piteous.
  • adjective Full of ruth or pity; merciful; compassionate.

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

  • adjective feeling or expressing pain or sorrow for sins or offenses

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English reuthful, reowthful, equivalent to ruth +‎ -ful.

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