What's the difference between pithy and pity?

Pithy


Definition:

  • (superl.) Consisting wholly, or in part, of pith; abounding in pith; as, a pithy stem; a pithy fruit.
  • (superl.) Having nervous energy; forceful; cogent.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) And while Altmejd presents sexual scenes of cartoonish horror and disgust, Lucas's art has embraced lavatorial humour, abjection, self-denigration, the pithy sculptural one-liner and the obscene gesture.
  • (2) This headline is a closely packed, multifaceted, pithy, rousing, basically perfect example of how strikes are presented in the tabloids, and have been for years.
  • (3) In fact, her pithy insults are deployed so regularly that colleagues on the spending watchdog have come up with the idea of playing “Margaret Hodge bingo”, scoring points when one of her putdowns pops out.
  • (4) The reshuffle had inspired some pithy one-liners and the PM was determined to deploy them all.
  • (5) Someone who bought tickets for a tennis event at the O2 sent me this pithy tweet: “4 tickets.
  • (6) There are plenty of 30-page documents and pithy slogans – but, as far as I can discover, nothing in between.
  • (7) It was a pithy line that feeds into the schtick about a bloated Brussels filled with born bureaucrats.
  • (8) The hawkish senator also defined his foreign policy: “A clenched fist and an open hand, you choose.” But the extent to which such pithy quips will help bolster Graham’s campaign – the senator is currently polling at 0.5% – remains questionable.
  • (9) But he has left Labour vulnerable over Brexit because the policy is so nuanced it cannot easily be boiled down to a pithy remark .
  • (10) Shortly after the YouTube sensation that was Jeremy Paxman's October interview with Russell Brand , Paxman wrote a pithy column about his disillusion with Westminster politics.
  • (11) Johnson, whose pithy interventions have caused embarrassment for all the major parties since the election campaign kicked off, opened the debate by stressing the gulf between the two major parties’ tax and spending plans.
  • (12) Sated by three years of Special One pyrotechnics, the British press might be ready to be charmed by Ramos' brand of quietly pithy humour.
  • (13) Obama: While the president generally struggled to get his "zingers" across, over-larding them with too much detail, he did get in a pithy dig about Romney's vague budget proposals which he claimed didn't add up.
  • (14) Jimmy Fallon, the host of the 2017 Golden Globes, has made a career of creating pithy viral moments that transcend television and resonate on the internet, but at this year’s ceremony the host was outdone by a bizarre recurring slip-up.
  • (15) In the months since their formation, the eight members of Pussy Riot have perfected their own form of protest: their songs are pithy, angry missives, largely directed at Putin, and they remain beguilingly anonymous – the band wear neon balaclavas to conceal their identities and perform flash gigs in unexpected places: on public transport, for example, and, once, on a prison roof.
  • (16) Instead, finance ministers signed up to a pithy list of bullet points, pledging to unleash all the policy weapons at their disposal against the crisis.
  • (17) The club was the brainchild of New Jersey shoe salesman Barney Josephson: a pithy antidote to the snooty, often racist elitism of other New York nightspots.
  • (18) But threnodies are not an argument, and memories are definitely not facts (Hobsbawm's pithy condemnation of oral history, delivered at a conference where I was due to speak, was terrifying).
  • (19) From a leader not known for her trenchant words or pithy sound bites her strong stance of the past few days has come as a surprise.
  • (20) You might expect he’d specialise in pithy one-liners, but in fact Delaney spins longer yarns onstage, all powered by a spirit of relentless cynicism.

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.