as in pitiful
deserving of one's pity
a piteous beggar huddled in the doorway of an abandoned building
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Recent Examples of piteous
An old woman and an old man, innocent as lambs, clambering over rubble with their piteous backpacks and bundles.
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David Bezmozgis, New Yorker, 6 Apr. 2025
Subjects set up as snakes in the grass are given piteous endings.
—Ben Travers, IndieWire, 20 Feb. 2025
Subjects set up as snakes in the grass are given piteous endings.
—Ben Travers, IndieWire, 20 Feb. 2025
The word integral seemed to me particularly poignant, piteous.
—Joyce Carol Oates, Harper's Magazine, 10 July 2023
Because the Grammys telecast draws generations of viewers, and because Grammy voters are drawn from a wide pool that skews older, what emerges on the show, and in the awards themselves, is a kind of piteous compromise that holds real innovation at bay.
—New York Times, 4 Apr. 2022
Later, Ivy interrogates Felix about having strayed dangerously from the straight-and-narrow, a confrontation that is agonizing to watch, as Mr. Torres’s performance gains in both piteous despair and angry ferocity.
—Charles Isherwood, WSJ, 17 Nov. 2022
In roaring luxury markets from Manhattan to San Francisco over the past few years, buyers were a piteous bunch.
—Katy McLaughlin, WSJ, 6 Mar. 2019
Recent Examples of Synonyms for piteous
Adjective
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But the rates were pitiful: $9.87 for a 13-mile trip, $19.97 for a 25-mile trip and so on.—
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Israel’s performance in climate mitigation, moving to renewable energies, is pitiful — just 12% when some countries are 70%.—
Adjective
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No other governor, remember, has tried to pull off this pathetic budget stunt.—
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In his last, most pathetic years, Mark Twain threw himself behind the crackpot theory that the true author of Shakespeare’s plays may have been Francis Bacon.—
Adjective
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Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns each added 23 points and OG Anunoby bounced back from two poor performances by scoring 20 for the Knicks, who can win the series Wednesday night at Boston.—
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Boston built big second-half leads on New York in both Games 1 and 2 at home, but squandered them due to uncharacteristically poor 3-point shooting.—
Adjective
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Roaches and a wretched food truck inspection lowlight this week’s list of South Florida restaurants shut down by state inspection.—
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Twain’s wife, Olivia Langdon, bore him four children, only one of whom escaped a wretched end.—
Adjective
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Allergies can make anyone miserable, especially when traveling.—
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Nothing’s more miserable than foot pain before the dancing’s even begun.—
Cite this Entry
“Piteous.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/piteous. Accessed 25 May. 2025.
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