What's the difference between pathetic and pitiful?

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.

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.