Piteous \Pit"e*ous\, a. [OE. pitous, OF. pitos, F. piteux. See
Pity.]
1. Pious; devout. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
The Lord can deliver piteous men from temptation.
--Wyclif.
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2. Evincing pity, compassion, or sympathy; compassionate;
tender. "[She] piteous of his case." --Pope.
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She was so charitable and so pitous. --Chaucer.
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3. Fitted to excite pity or sympathy; wretched; miserable;
lamentable; sad; as, a piteous case. --Spenser.
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The most piteous tale of Lear. --Shak.
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4. Paltry; mean; pitiful. "Piteous amends." --Milton.
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Syn: Sorrowful; mournful; affecting; doleful; woeful; rueful;
sad; wretched; miserable; pitiable; pitiful;
compassionate.
[1913 Webster] --
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
piteous
adj : deserving or inciting pity; "a hapless victim"; "miserable
victims of war"; "the shabby room struck her as
extraordinarily pathetic"- Galsworthy; "piteous appeals
for help"; "pitiable homeless children"; "a pitiful
fate"; "Oh, you poor thing"; "his poor distorted
limbs"; "a wretched life" [syn: hapless, miserable,
misfortunate, pathetic, pitiable, pitiful, poor,
wretched]
WordNet (r) 2.0
53 Moby Thesaurus words for "piteous":
affecting, afflictive, beseeching, bitter, bleak, cheerless,
comfortless, deplorable, depressing, depressive, discomforting,
dismal, dismaying, distressful, distressing, doleful, dolorific,
dolorogenic, dolorous, dreary, emotional, entreating, grievous,
heartrending, imploring, joyless, lamentable, melancholy,
miserable, mournful, moving, painful, pathetic, pitiable, pitiful,
plaintive, poignant, poor, regrettable, rueful, ruined, sad,
saddening, sharp, sore, sorrowful, supplicating, tearful, touching,
uncomfortable, woebegone, woeful, wretched
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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