Meaning of PATHETIC
| Pronunciation: | | pu'thetik
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 WordNet Dictionary |
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- [adj] inspiring scornful pity; "how silly an ardent and unsuccessful wooer can be especially if he is getting on in years"- Dashiell Hammett
- [adj] inspiring mixed contempt and pity; "their efforts were pathetic"; "pitiable lack of character"; "pitiful exhibition of cowardice"
- [adj] deserving or inciting pity; "a hapless victim"; "miserable victims of war"; "the shabby room struck her as extraordinarily pathetic"- Galsworthy; "piteous appeals for help"; "pitiable homeless children"; "a pitiful fate"; "couldn't rescue the poor fellow"; "his poor distorted limbs"; "a wretched life"
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| | Synonyms: | | contemptible, hapless, miserable, misfortunate, piteous, pitiable, pitiful, poor, ridiculous, silly, undignified, unfortunate, wretched |
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| Webster's 1913 Dictionary |
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| | Definition: | | \Pa*thet"ic\, a. [L. patheticus, Gr. ?, fr. ?, ?, to
suffer: cf. F. path['e]tique. See {Pathos}.]
1. Expressing or showing anger; passionate. [Obs.]
2. Affecting or moving the tender emotions, esp. pity or
grief; full of pathos; as, a pathetic song or story.
``Pathetic action.'' --Macaulay.
No theory of the passions can teach a man to be
pathetic. --E. Porter.
{Pathetic muscle} (Anat.), the superior oblique muscle of the
eye.
{Pathetic nerve} (Anat.), the fourth cranial, or trochlear,
nerve, which supplies the superior oblique, or pathetic,
muscle of the eye.
{The pathetic}, a style or manner adapted to arouse the
tender emotions.
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| Thesaurus Terms |
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| | Related Terms: | | affecting, affective, afflictive, beggarly, beneath contempt, bitter, bleak, cheap, cheerless, cheesy, comfortless, common, contemptible, crummy, deplorable, depressing, depressive, despicable, discomforting, dismal, dismaying, distressful, distressing, doleful, dolorific, dolorogenic, dolorous, dreary, emotional, emotive, feeble, gaudy, gimcracky, grievous, heartrending, inadequate, joyless, lamentable, mean, measly, meretricious, miserable, mournful, moving, painful, paltry, petty, piddling, piteous, pitiable, pitiful, plaintive, poignant, poor, puny, regrettable, rubbishy, rueful, sad, saddening, scrubby, scruffy, scummy, scurvy, scuzzy, shabby, sharp, shoddy, sore, sorrowful, sorry, stirring, touching, tragic, trashy, trumpery, two-for-a-cent, two-for-a-penny, twopenny, twopenny-halfpenny, uncomfortable, valueless, vile, woebegone, woeful, worthless, wretched |
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