What's the difference between melodramatic and pathetic?

Melodramatic


Definition:

  • (a.) Of or pertaining to melodrama; like or suitable to a melodrama; unnatural in situation or action.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Ron Atkinson described one trip to Anfield as like going into the Vietnam War and, if that sounds melodramatic all these years on, his team had just been attacked with tear gas.
  • (2) In 1850 you could see Benjamin West’s ever popular vision of the apocalypse, Death on a Pale Horse , riding melodramatically back into view on Broadway for the fourth time in as many years; and a gallery of Rembrandts at Niblo’s theatre, where Charles Blondin once walked a tightrope.
  • (3) Old Trafford was once a Theatre of Dreams but now setting for a tragedy , melodramatics Russell Brand.
  • (4) The satirists were completely disregarded as news producers continued to make ever more melodramatic, repetitive and graphically absurd programmes.
  • (5) Adaptations Don Juan and The Corsair were both filmed in melodramatic black and white; the Byronic hero spawned a thousand celluloid imitations - Gabriel Byrne is convincingly Byronic as Byron in Ken Russell's hallucinogenic and slightly laughable Gothic (1986).
  • (6) A suspicion lingers among some that gothic answers only to the teenager's melodramatic instincts ( TS Eliot diagnosed a taste for Edgar Allan Poe as fatally adolescent), its terrors as ultimately unserious as saying "Boo!".
  • (7) I was making lyrics that would rhyme or flow or capture a mood, and looking back I think: ‘Why was I doing that?’ I don’t have a particularly melodramatic or exceptional life but at least I can sing about the things that are happening in my life and it feels so much better and more honest and more meaningful.” While hardly startling territory for a singer-songwriter, the juxtaposition of Dan’s wavering delivery with stirring dance rhythms functions as a kind of emotional double whammy.
  • (8) [The film] aches for more depth and warmth and humour, but this is spectacular sci-fi – huge, operatic, melodramatic, impressive.
  • (9) Without being melodramatic about it, I say, you are holding in your hands an example of the price that is paid for being a professional footballer at the top of his game.
  • (10) Lord Home who has died at the age of 92, was in manner unobtrusive and undemanding yet reached the height of his political career, first as foreign secretary and next as prime minister, in melodramatic circumstances.
  • (11) And then along came a Greek deal, and now a US debt deal, and you might presume I had been prematurely melodramatic.
  • (12) But the prosecution described his testimony as “Oscar-worthy” and said it amounted to a “melodramatic denial” of his sexual proclivities.
  • (13) The proximity of one of the Kremlin towers to the spot where Nemtsov was shot in the back is darkly melodramatic, and the symbolism could not be clearer.
  • (14) "In some senses they have reacted in a slightly melodramatic manner.
  • (15) That melodramatic, all-over-the-shop approach to vocal melody just screamed “hippy” at me, and seemed to be the aural equivalent of shawls, beads, headdresses and candles, all of which I suspected Kate Bush was wearing or surrounded by while she recorded the vocal.
  • (16) Trierweiler is forever dashing into bathrooms and collapsing while Hollande is an unfeeling prig who either ignores her or tells her to stop being so melodramatic.
  • (17) Rosa portrays himself melodramatically, and with a gnomic tablet saying that silence is the best policy.
  • (18) While he recognises that this may sound melodramatic, he points out that this is precisely what has happened with previous decisions to tighten eligibility for other disability benefits.
  • (19) "Sometimes the smallest little detail can change the course of history," he says, melodramatically.
  • (20) He was the first foreign secretary for 20 years to be a member of the House of Lords he was the first (and surely last) man ever to disclaim six peerages to become prime minister and he was responsible for arranging that his successor should be chosen by secret ballot held among Conservative members of the House of Commons, with equally melodramatic consequences.

Pathetic


Definition:

  • (a.) Expressing or showing anger; passionate.
  • (a.) Affecting or moving the tender emotions, esp. pity or grief; full of pathos; as, a pathetic song or story.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But Blair's address - "history will forgive us" - was a dubious exercise in group therapy: the cheers smacked of pathetic gratitude, as he piously pardoned the legislators, as well as himself, for the catastrophe of Iraq.
  • (2) This is the most pathetic thing I’ve seen in my whole time in the United States Senate … I think they ought to stop posturing and acting like idiots.” Sean Spicer , the White House press secretary, branded the Democrats’ actions “embarrassing”.
  • (3) Hugo Williams, his assistant at LM for many years, once wrote of him turning contributions round at the door - for which their authors, said Williams, were pathetically grateful.
  • (4) This together with the pathetic lack of careers advice leaves too many girls and young women with no incentives to raise their sights or their ambitions.
  • (5) LOWLIGHT Marcus Christenson The racism in itself in first place and then the pathetic fines that came with it.
  • (6) He described the Croatian prime minister’s handling of the refugees as “pathetic.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hungarian police monitor a large group of migrants and refugees at a border crossing between Hungary and Croatia at Beremend.
  • (7) "My life speaks for me so there is no need to speak any more about this situation because it is ridiculous and pathetic."
  • (8) The alleged rewards were pathetically modest: gift certificates to Bed Bath & Beyond or Target were considered enough, apparently, to permanently kick people out of their homes.
  • (9) Announcing his party's plans today, Simon Hughes, the Lib Dems' climate change and energy spokesman, said: "One per cent of our current stock being energy-efficient is pathetic.
  • (10) "Everyone could see through what they were trying to do: 'Don't look at this vast hole in the public finances over there, look at this pathetic piece of class war posturing with 50p over here.'
  • (11) If they are those that have been running policy and advising policymakers then their record on youth unemployment so far has been quite pathetic.
  • (12) Australia is the richest, largest country in the region, so to sit back and say we are doing enough is pathetic really,” said Ritter, who attended the Kiribati summit.
  • (13) The most pathetic claim has been that Hammond did not warn his cabinet colleagues that the increase represented a breach of the Conservative manifesto.
  • (14) The pathetic point-scoring spat between health secretary Jeremy Hunt and his opposite number, Andy Burnham, over a past hospital scandal is dominating the headlines.
  • (15) Opening the assault on Brown, the SNP MP Mike Weir said: "We are witnessing the pathetic sight of a cabinet reshuffling itself.
  • (16) "Clint, my hero, is coming across as sad and pathetic," wrote the American film critic Roger Ebert.
  • (17) The fact that a mother-figure, the less-than-interesting Lady Russell, had "persuaded" Anne eight years earlier to give up the young man with whom she had fallen in love, due to his lack of prospects, was merely pathetic.
  • (18) Australia could meet tougher greenhouse gas emission targets without extra economic pain, according to the modelling used by the Abbott government to decide on post-2020 emission reduction targets that have been labelled “pathetically inadequate” .
  • (19) It displays a lamentable absence of quantitative detail, and a pathetic reliance on fashionable but questionable forecasting techniques that have long been compellingly contradicted by hard data."
  • (20) Instead he was outthought and outfought and, having lost his WBA title to Wladimir Klitschko, reduced rather pathetically to blaming the defeat on a broken toe.