piteous
Adjective

piteous

  1. Provoking pity, compassion, or sympathy.
    Synonyms: heartbreaking, heartrending, lamentable, pathetic, pitiful
    • circa 1605 William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act V, Scene 3,
      […] with his strong arms
      He fastened on my neck, and bellowed out
      As he’d burst heaven; threw him on my father;
      Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him
      That ever ear receiv’d;
    • 1782, Frances Burney, Cecilia (Burney novel), London: T. Payne & Son and T. Cadell, Volume 2, Book 3, Chapter 4, p. 51,
      […] my strength, madam, is almost all gone away, and when I do any hard work, it’s quite a piteous sight to see me, for I am all in a tremble after it, just as if I had an ague […]
    • 1852, Frederick Douglass, “The Internal Slave Trade: Extract from an Oration, at Rochester, July” in My Bondage and My Freedom,
      In the deep, still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead, heavy footsteps and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door.
    • 1931, Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth, New York: Modern Library, 1944, Chapter 11, pp. 80-81,
      “ […] you go out to beg, first smearing yourself with mud and filth to make yourselves as piteous as you can.”
  2. (obsolete) Showing devotion to God.
    Synonyms: devout, pious
  3. (obsolete) Showing compassion.
    Synonyms: compassionate, tender
    • circa 1595 William Shakespeare, Richard II (play), Act V, Scene 3,
      Thine eye begins to speak; set thy tongue there;
      Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear;
      That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,
      Pity may move thee ‘pardon’ to rehearse.
    • 1634, John Milton, Comus (Milton), London: Humphrey Robinson, 1637, p. 29,
      The water Nymphs that in the bottome playd
      Held up their pearled wrists and tooke her in,
      Bearing her straite to aged Nereus hall
      Who piteous of her woes rea[r’]d her lanke head,
      And gave her to his daughters to imbathe
      In nectar’d lavers strewd with asphodil,
    • 1728, Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, London: A. Dodd, Book 2, p. 21,
      With that the Goddess (piteous of his case,
      Yet smiling at his ruful length of face)
      Gives him a cov’ring,
    • 1783, William Blake, “An Imitation of Spenser” in Poetical Sketches, London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 1868, p. 37,
      Or have they soft piteous eyes beheld
      The weary wanderer thro’ the desert rove?
      Or does th’ afflicted man thy heavenly bosom move?
  4. (obsolete) Of little importance or value.
    Synonyms: miserable, paltry, pathetic, mean, pitiful
    • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 9, lines 1030-1034,
      […] calling to minde with heed
      Part of our Sentence, that thy Seed shall bruise
      The Serpents head; piteous amends, unless
      Be meant, whom I conjecture, our grand Foe
      Satan,
    • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, London: W. Taylor, pp. 158-159,
      […] my Business was now to try if I could not make Jackets out of the great Watch-Coats which I had by me, and with such other Materials as I had, so I set to Work a Taylering, or rather indeed a Botching, for I made most piteous Work of it.
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