What's the difference between paltry and pitiful?

Paltry


Definition:

  • (superl.) Mean; vile; worthless; despicable; contemptible; pitiful; trifling; as, a paltry excuse; paltry gold.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) She says that the spread of insecure, short-term contracts and part-time work, together with benefits cuts and paltry wage growth, have meant that many people in work are struggling to make ends meet.
  • (2) Let’s leave that discussion to another day, but imagine a combination of the two – sort of Transformers meets Ex Machina – in which a race of giant sexy robots battles it out with another race of really mean giant sexy robots while paltry human beings look on in awe, and teenage boys (and girls) experience incredibly conflicting and disturbing sensual awakenings in the front row of the Beckenham Odeon.
  • (3) Only Orange's pay monthly deals come with Wi-Fi access and they only include a paltry 750MB of Wi-Fi browsing – again through BT Openzone's network of hotspots.
  • (4) In 2010 Bedder 6 paid out total dividends of £1.68m — which saw Clarkson pocket a comparatively paltry £850,000 when his share is calculated and his annual service payment is added in — meaning his income from Bedder 6 has almost tripled year on year.
  • (5) A paltry 50g of brown rice takes up over a third of your daily calorie count.
  • (6) By his own lofty standards Cavendish's return of two stage wins from this year's Tour has been paltry and myriad signs of hitherto unseen fallibility, a team that is clearly not good enough to work in his service and suggestions that his star is on the wane will leave him with much to ponder.
  • (7) If the recession results in interest rates remaining low for years, as many in the City are now predicting, then annuity rates will also remain at paltry levels.
  • (8) Frontex’s annual budget is a paltry €90m (£65m).
  • (9) Russia and China , meanwhile, have contributed a paltry $17.8 million and $1.2 million, respectively.
  • (10) It is the result of rejecting the world of public disengagement and laissez faire that delivered one paltry gold medal in Atlanta just 16 years ago.
  • (11) The value has now decreased slightly and their share probably sits at a paltry $10m.
  • (12) In 1959, US intelligence estimates suggested that the USSR would be in possession of between 1,000 and 1,500 nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) compared to America’s paltry 100.
  • (13) Co-operative customer #3 is making do with a paltry state pension, subsidising the cost of groceries with a fortnightly package from the local food bank and unable to afford energy bills.
  • (14) The food industry spends over £1bn a year on marketing in the UK, compared with the paltry £14m spent on the government's anti-obesity campaign.
  • (15) The Italians are earning paltry returns from knocking out white goods in competition with the Chinese and Koreans.
  • (16) A paltry £1,000 for each marginal Labour candidate hardly buys a poster site.
  • (17) The sums are so paltry that the animus seems deliberate.
  • (18) As he itemises the contents of the pawnbroker's shop ("a few old China cups; some modern vases, adorned with paltry paintings of three Spanish cavaliers playing three Spanish guitars; or a party of boors carousing: each boor with one leg painfully elevated in the air by way of expressing his perfect freedom and gaiety …") you sense that Dickens barely knows how to stop.
  • (19) Yet he went on to pretend a paltry array of stimuli will fix the problem: he cannot possibly believe that loose change from the petty cash will arrest the plunge in employment and growth.
  • (20) Growth for the UK in 2012 will be a paltry 0.6%, the IMF says.

Pitiful


Definition:

  • (a.) Full of pity; tender-hearted; compassionate; kind; merciful; sympathetic.
  • (a.) Piteous; lamentable; eliciting compassion.
  • (a.) To be pitied for littleness or meanness; miserable; paltry; contemptible; despicable.

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.