What's the difference between pitiable and poor?

Pitiable


Definition:

  • (a.) Deserving pity; wworthy of, or exciting, compassion; miserable; lamentable; piteous; as, pitiable persons; a pitiable condition; pitiable wretchedness.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "He is not here," says a rebel guard: glazed eyes, rifle slung over ill-fitting uniform, pitiably young.
  • (2) Sometimes, characters who aren't having sex are seen as pitiable but most of the time, whether they can't or won't do it, we're just supposed to laugh at them.
  • (3) Louis Kavanagh of Solihull, who proposed the motion, blamed “lazy students, pitiable parenting, ineffectual school discipline measures and structures putting all the burden on the class teacher”.
  • (4) Descriptions of how he had been severely bullied at school were used to explain how he had become a pitiable, alienated individual who barely left the house except to empty his bins, and whose only life was lived through the internet.
  • (5) Struggling, but with scant success, to get her head round the concept of an independent Scotland, the mother in the much-viewed Better Together advertisement , the Woman Who Made up Her Mind, cuts a pitiable figure.
  • (6) Where the Miley Cyruses of this world try cropping their hair off and gyrating semi-naked in order to be seen as adults, or the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes lose all semblance of a plan and spin off into pitiable tabloid notoriety, Gomez's transition has been rather smarter.
  • (7) Sad!” The paradox is that the president never seems more cheerful than when denouncing something as sad, finding as he does perhaps his only moments of authentic happiness in portraying the position of his enemies as pitiably hopeless.
  • (8) "It was pitiable to see these poor people struggling with their adversity, and to think of the cheerless night they must spend amid their sodden surroundings," the Eastern Daily Press wrote.
  • (9) A throwback to the early Zionists, he was wedded to the soil, certain of his beliefs, the antithesis of the supposedly pitiable diaspora Jew.
  • (10) The ABC broadcast brings front and centre a number of uncertainties, confusions and misconceptions about holding refugees in pitiable Pacific states.
  • (11) Those seeking to defend shouldn't feel they have to portray themselves as anything close to pitiable in response.
  • (12) As Cady (la Lohan, who has also undergone many changes in the past decade) notes in Mean Girls, “In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut, and no other girls can say anything about it.” In other words, it’s something that pitiable and confused teenage girls do, like affecting to enjoy smoking, or pretending to be interested in every boring thing some boring boy says in the hope he’ll provide her with some self-validation.
  • (13) This paper deals with the pitiable case of a meanwhile four years old infant having been battered by his stepmother.
  • (14) Behind the far-left yobs, who disgrace every good cause in Britain, the protesters who did not riot in Parliament Square on Thursday looked almost pitiable.
  • (15) Any unmarried, unmothered woman over 30 is generally described as "brave" for which read: pitiable, for which read: tragic ( "Taking her mind off her newly single status, Kelly Brook, 33, was seen laughing and smiling … She appeared to be coping well."
  • (16) They are the most pitiable group of cases seen, but they can all be offered some help, however limited one's resources.
  • (17) It is, again, easy to dismiss her charity work as a rational extension of her own narcissism, which is almost pitiable in itself – it is a truism that it is almost impossible to recover from fame.

Poor


Definition:

  • (superl.) Destitute of property; wanting in material riches or goods; needy; indigent.
  • (superl.) So completely destitute of property as to be entitled to maintenance from the public.
  • (superl.) Destitute of such qualities as are desirable, or might naturally be expected
  • (superl.) Wanting in fat, plumpness, or fleshiness; lean; emaciated; meager; as, a poor horse, ox, dog, etc.
  • (superl.) Wanting in strength or vigor; feeble; dejected; as, poor health; poor spirits.
  • (superl.) Of little value or worth; not good; inferior; shabby; mean; as, poor clothes; poor lodgings.
  • (superl.) Destitute of fertility; exhausted; barren; sterile; -- said of land; as, poor soil.
  • (superl.) Destitute of beauty, fitness, or merit; as, a poor discourse; a poor picture.
  • (superl.) Without prosperous conditions or good results; unfavorable; unfortunate; unconformable; as, a poor business; the sick man had a poor night.
  • (superl.) Inadequate; insufficient; insignificant; as, a poor excuse.
  • (superl.) Worthy of pity or sympathy; -- used also sometimes as a term of endearment, or as an expression of modesty, and sometimes as a word of contempt.
  • (superl.) Free from self-assertion; not proud or arrogant; meek.
  • (n.) A small European codfish (Gadus minutus); -- called also power cod.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) There was appreciable variation in toothbrush wear among subjects, some reducing their brush to a poor state in 2 weeks whereas with others the brush was rated as "good" after 10 weeks.
  • (2) However, medicines have an important part to play, and it is now generally agreed that for the very poor populations medicines should be restricted to those on an 'essential drugs list' and should be made available as cheaply as possible.
  • (3) Inadequate treatment, caused by a lack of drugs and poorly trained medical attendants, is also a major problem.
  • (4) Clonazepam was added to the treatment of patients with poorly controlled epilepsy in a double-blind trial and an open trial.
  • (5) "There is a serious risk that a deal will be agreed between rich countries and tax havens that would leave poor countries out in the cold.
  • (6) The dangers caused by PM10s was highlighted in the Rogers review of local authority regulatory services, published in 2007, which said poor air quality contributed to between 12,000 and 24,000 premature deaths each year.
  • (7) Maybe the world economy goes tits up again, only this time we punish the rich instead of the poor.
  • (8) Poor radioresponders of glioblastoma with CEA should be reoperated.
  • (9) Poor lipophilicity and extremely low plasma concentrations impose severe constraints.
  • (10) However, each of the studies had numerous methodological flaws which biased their results against finding a relationship: either their outcome measures had questionable validity, their research designs were inappropriate, or the statistical analyses were poorly conceived.
  • (11) Symptoms were poorly localized in all these IPS osteomyelitis patients.
  • (12) Prognosis of patients with these autonomic failures is poor.
  • (13) All patients in Stages I and II (5 out of 26) who developed metastases had poorly differentiated (histological Type III) tumours.
  • (14) This study provides strong and unexpected evidence that one admission to hospital of more than a week's duration or repeated admissions before the age of five years (in particular between six months and four years) are associated with an increased risk of behaviour disturbance and poor reading in adolescence.
  • (15) Patients were divided into two groups: poor outcome, defined by the death or a post-operative Karnofsky index less than or equal to 70 (n = 36), and good outcome defined by a Karnofsky index of 80 or more (n = 60).
  • (16) Improvement of its particularly poor prognosis requires therefore early screening based on reliable biological markers.
  • (17) It has a poor prognosis prior to the current combined treatment of surgical ablation, radiation to the surgical field, and chemotherapy for microscopic metastases.
  • (18) Photograph: AP Reasons for wavering • State relies on coal-fired electricity • Poor prospects for wind power • Conservative Democrat • Represents conservative district in conservative state and was elected on narrow margins Campaign support from fossil fuel interests in 2008 • $93,743 G K Butterfield (North Carolina) GK Butterfield, North Carolina.
  • (19) There were significant differences in the mean erythrocyte transketolase activity of the thiaminase excreting poor animals and the thiaminase free normal animals.
  • (20) In this material the ultrastructural details are very poorly preserved.