What's the difference between pity and touching?

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.

Touching


Definition:

  • (p. pr. & vb. n.) of Touch
  • (a.) Affecting; moving; pathetic; as, a touching tale.
  • (prep.) Concerning; with respect to.
  • (n.) The sense or act of feeling; touch.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) On 9 January 2002, a few hours after Blair became the first western leader to visit Afghanistan's new post-Taliban leader, Hamid Karzai, an aircraft carrying the first group of MI5 interrogators touched down at Bagram airfield, 32 miles north of Kabul.
  • (2) He was very touched that President Nicolas Sarkozy came out to the airport to meet us, even after Madiba retired.
  • (3) Considerate touches includes the free use of cruiser bicycles (the best method of tackling the Palm Springs main drag), home-baked cookies … and if you'd like to get married, ask the manager: he's a minister.
  • (4) At first it looked as though the winger might have shown too much of the ball to the defence, yet he managed to gain a crucial last touch to nudge it past Phil Jones and into the path of Jerome, who slipped Chris Smalling’s attempt at a covering tackle and held off Michael Carrick’s challenge to place a shot past an exposed De Gea.
  • (5) Gove, who touched on no fewer than 11 policy areas, made his remarks in the annual Keith Joseph memorial lecture organised by the Centre for Policy Studies, the Thatcherite thinktank that was the intellectual powerhouse behind her government.
  • (6) In 120 consecutive patients who had colonic roentgenologic examination and no depressive sign, two had coccygeal and muscular pain at rectal touch.
  • (7) The Tories were seen as out of touch and for the few.
  • (8) Domino’s had been in touch with Driscoll on Thursday morning and was “working to make it up to him ... and to ensure he is not out of pocket for any expenses incurred”.
  • (9) A growing educated middle class is losing touch with apartheid history and seeking alternatives.
  • (10) Single cells in pairs or clusters of touching cells in each exposure group were examined with FRAP.
  • (11) Conroy, out at the ovarian cancer event we’ve already touched on, was unrepentent as he was chased down the corridor by reporters.
  • (12) "For tax evaders, she should turn to Pasok and New Democracy to explain to her why they haven't touched the big money and have been chasing the simple worker for two years."
  • (13) I tweet, check Facebook, chat with friends, keep in touch with colleagues, check in using Foursquare, use it to check work emails from home and organise notes using Evernote.
  • (14) 1-1 2.15am GMT 48 mins Giles Barnes is down again, turning his ankle under a challenge (but not actually touched by the tackle).
  • (15) It is concluded that chronic peripheral nerve section affects the anatomical and physiological mechanisms underlying the formation of light touch receptive fields of dorsal horn neurons in the lumbosacral cord of the adult cat, but that the resulting reorganization of receptive fields is spatially restricted.
  • (16) When the plane bringing his friend in touched down, they were greeted with a recorded welcome from the Queen telling them that they had now arrived in a safe country.
  • (17) We analyzed the trophoblast subpopulations which appear on touch smears of chorionic villi morphologically and immunohistochemically, using the uterine contents of 37 cases of induced abortion.
  • (18) Bill Clinton (@billclinton) Just touched down in Africa with @ChelseaClinton .
  • (19) Right now I think the discussion is not honest and practical, it is hysterical and political.” In contrast to the IOC, which did not contact McLaren, he said the International Paralympic Committee had been in close touch as it decides on whether to ban the Russian team.
  • (20) Rat pups from 12 litters were handled daily, once every three days, or never touched between postnatal Days 5 and 20.