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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

pitiful.

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

7 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈpɪt.ɪ.fl̩/
  1. So appalling or sad that one feels or should feel sorry for it; eliciting pity.

    Scotland has a pitiful climate.
  2. Eliciting contempt.

  3. Of an amount or number: very small.

    A pitiful number of students bothered to turn up.
  4. Feeling pity; merciful.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

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

adv/ˈpɪt.ɪ.fl̩/
  1. In a pitiful manner; pitifully; piteously; pathetically.

    colloquial · dialectal
Where this word comes from

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

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.