What's the difference between pathetic and piteous?

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.

Piteous


Definition:

  • (a.) Pious; devout.
  • (a.) Evincing pity, compassion, or sympathy; compassionate; tender.
  • (a.) Fitted to excite pity or sympathy; wretched; miserable; lamentable; sad; as, a piteous case.
  • (a.) Paltry; mean; pitiful.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He waits, outside, hearing "piteous, animal moans".
  • (2) One administrator piteously argued that the government officials who create these characters work hard on them and so would feel bad if they were discontinued.
  • (3) If the masters of England's great public schools are busy forming Self-piteous Anonymous, there are many good candidates for entry.
  • (4) In her personal report about being at the centre of the recent political storm, Sarah Vine (columnist and wife of Michael Gove) recorded piteously that the abuse felt like having a lovely dress mocked.