What's the difference between complain and pity?

Complain


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To give utterance to expression of grief, pain, censure, regret. etc.; to lament; to murmur; to find fault; -- commonly used with of. Also, to creak or squeak, as a timber or wheel.
  • (v. i.) To make a formal accusation; to make a charge.
  • (v. t.) To lament; to bewail.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In the ketamine group, 36% of the patients complained of unpleasant dreams.
  • (2) Sewel is also recorded complaining about the level of appearance allowances at the House of Lords .
  • (3) A case is presented of a 35-year-old woman who was brought to the emergency service by ambulance complaining of vomiting for 7 days and that she could not hear well because she was 'worn out'.
  • (4) Because they generally have to be positioned on hills to get the maximum benefits of the wind, some complain that they ruin the landscape.
  • (5) The matter is now in the hands of the Guernsey police and the law officers.” One resident who is a constant target of the paper and has complained to police, Rosie Guille, said the allegations had a “huge impact on morale” on the island.
  • (6) Unions have complained about the process for Chinese-backed companies to bring overseas workers to Australia for projects worth at least $150m, because the memorandum of understanding says “there will be no requirement for labour market testing” to enter into an investment facilitation arrangements (IFA).
  • (7) The degree of discomfort was slightly greater in women who complained of breast tenderness within three days prior to the mammogram but was not strongly related to age, menstrual status, or week of the menstrual cycle.
  • (8) Lofgren complains that " the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital centre today ".
  • (9) TGI was present in high titres in all five patients who complained about recurrent goitre.
  • (10) Hyperprolactinemia, hypogonadotropinism, and subnormal plasma testosterone were found in a 65-year-old patient who had an enlarged sella turcica, complained of fatigue, and addmitted to decreased sexual interest and potency.
  • (11) Fairly frequently the patients complained about mucosal dryness and sporadically about dyspeptic symptoms, but these symptoms were not disturbing the course of the treatment.
  • (12) A forty-four-year-old woman with Takayasu's arteritis and involvement of the aortic arch and its main branches complained of precordial pain on effort.
  • (13) The £1m fine, proposed during the Leveson inquiry into press standards, was designed to demonstrate how seriously the industry was taking lessons learned after the failure of the Press Complains Commission tto investigate phone hacking at the News of the World.
  • (14) That was what the earlier debate over “currency wars” – when emerging markets complained about being inundated by financial inflows from the US – was all about.
  • (15) These results are likely to underestimate the true number of complaints because participants may be withdrawn (e.g., deaths, losses to follow-up, and refusals) before they ever complain of an adverse effect.
  • (16) Hysterography and hysteroscopy have been compared in the diagnosis of endouterine benign pathology, in a group of 50 patients, complaining meno-metrorrhagia, sterility, infertility or amenorrhea.
  • (17) A 55-year-old Japanese man was admitted to our hospital in January 1985 complaining of epigastralgia.
  • (18) Israel has complained in recent weeks of an increase in stone throwing and molotov cocktail attacks on West Bank roads and in areas adjoining mainly Palestinian areas of Jerusalem, where an elderly motorist died after crashing his car during an alleged stoning attack.
  • (19) The force said reports from its directorate of professional standards (DPS) were not routinely disclosed to complainants or outsiders.
  • (20) Although 41% of the participants complained of dry mouth, neither serious adverse effects nor evidence of medication abuse appeared.

Pity


Definition:

  • (n.) Piety.
  • (n.) A feeling for the sufferings or distresses of another or others; sympathy with the grief or misery of another; compassion; fellow-feeling; commiseration.
  • (n.) A reason or cause of pity, grief, or regret; a thing to be regretted.
  • (v. t.) To feel pity or compassion for; to have sympathy with; to compassionate; to commiserate; to have tender feelings toward (any one), awakened by a knowledge of suffering.
  • (v. t.) To move to pity; -- used impersonally.
  • (v. i.) To be compassionate; to show pity.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The voters don’t do gratitude, self-pitying politicians are wont to moan.
  • (2) With grievous amazement, never self-pitying but sometimes bordering on a sort of numbed wonderment, Levi records the day-to-day personal and social history of the camp, noting not only the fine gradations of his own descent, but the capacity of some prisoners to cut a deal and strike a bargain, while others, destined by their age or character for the gas ovens, follow "the slope down to the bottom, like streams that run down to the sea".
  • (3) "); hopeless self-pity ("Nobody said anything to me about Billy ... all day long") and rage ("You want to put a bench in the park in Billy's name?
  • (4) Indeed, mainstream economics is a pitifully thin distillation of historical wisdom on the topics that it addresses.
  • (5) Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?” It is there to remind him that the dots are worth fighting for.
  • (6) Last year, Amnesty International described the world’s response as “pitiful” and earlier this week, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants called on the EU to deliver a proper resettlement programme.
  • (7) April's family had to endure the "spectacle of your hypocritical sympathy for their loss and of your tears", the judge told Bridger, saying any tears were motivated purely by self-pity.
  • (8) And this is the mainspring of so many of his stories, novellas, and his one novel, Beware of Pity : the clash between propriety and desire.
  • (9) It’s actually a pity that there’s now a break because I wanted to continue playing games,” said the Italian.
  • (10) In his final fight, against the journeyman boxer Kevin McBride, he was a pitiful figure - slumped in a corner, legs splayed, unable or unwilling to stand himself up.
  • (11) Other negative emotions – self-pity, guilt, apathy, pessimism, narcissism – make it a deeply unattractive illness to be around, one that requires unusual levels of understanding and tolerance from family and friends.
  • (12) He said it was a “pity” that the UK prime minister “wasn’t able to express the British position at the press conference with Donald Trump standing next to her”.
  • (13) As the turbulent commercial radio sector enters another new phase, Park wants to sweep away the thinking that has left too many of his colleagues wallowing in self-pity, and turn his fire on a familiar target.
  • (14) Broadly defined, this sort of behaviour involves procrastination, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, obstructionism, self-pity and a tendency to create chaotic situations.
  • (15) It is a pity we did not take our chances,” the Ukraine coach, Mykhailo Fomenko, said.
  • (16) "This depressing morning has now got me questioning my pitiful existence," sobs James Dodge.
  • (17) Foreign dignitaries were invited to attend for the first time and it is a pity that from Europe only Javier Solana chose to take the offer up.
  • (18) Men convicted of rape are often pitied in the media and, like Evans, quickly vault back to positions of fame .
  • (19) But after the strange denials that this old, sick man is dying I want to talk not with pity but of his power.
  • (20) Staff here dread the welfare reform bill, waiting for debts, arrears, evictions and pitiful hardship to wash up on their doorstep.