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pathetic
in a sentence
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  • The shabby room struck her as extraordinarily pathetic.
  • I don't let myself say to him what I'd like to, that he probably deserved whatever she did, but he's just too pathetic-looking.   (source)
    pathetic = pitiful
  • That pathetic woman. The fact that harder times were coming was surely the best reason for keeping Rosa employed, but no, they fired her.   (source)
    pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
  • The owl flopped about pathetically, its talons scratching the door, bashing its head in a panic.   (source)
    pathetically = in a manner that arouses pity
  • How pathetic that I felt safer in someone else's house than in my own, right?   (source)
    pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
  • I think you're a pathetic alcoholic who says fancy things to get attention like a really precocious eleven-year-old and I feel super bad for you.   (source)
  • "They were a pathetic looking bunch: mostly skin and bones, clad in rags with makeshift footwear, and nervous," he wrote.   (source)
  • He blew his nose on a corner of the filthy pillowcase he wore, looking so pathetic that Harry felt his anger ebb away in spite of himself.   (source)
  • Then, in a gesture that would have done both Thoreau and Tolstoy proud, he arranged all his paper currency in a pile on the sand, a pathetic little stack of ones and fives and twenties, and put a match to it.   (source)
    pathetic = pitiful (so little it arouses pity)
  • Any other day of my life I could have won a fibbing contest hands down, and that, that is what I came up with: the pathetic truth.   (source)
    pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
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show 35 more with this conextual meaning
  • Without a second of hesitation, she reached up and ripped one of my sleeves off and walked away. I gasped in outrage but was too stunned to do anything more. I looked down and saw a tattered scrap of fabric dangling pathetically in front of me.   (source)
    pathetically = in a manner that arouses pity
  • Mrs Whatsit gave a deep and pathetic sigh.   (source)
    pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
  • You talk about some pathetic, tortured-looking little faces.   (source)
  • One of them was a pathetic cry, Onwumbiko— "Death, I implore you."   (source)
  • This Mr. Dreher has already been a great nuisance to Father, and I've always admired the saintly patience with which he handled this pathetic old man on the phone.   (source)
  • I'm sorry if this sounds pathetic, but you know it's true.   (source)
  • He walked very slowly, and he had lost so much weight. It was pathetic, that's what it was.   (source)
    pathetic = pitiful (something that arouses pity)
  • Whatever they thought Thurmond was like, whatever they believed I'd gone through, it was bad enough to mark me as pathetic in their eyes.   (source)
    pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
  • He had seduced her with his pathetic tale of wandering through the camps as a child and had somehow enlisted her sympathy.   (source)
  • If she pitied me, she might think that I was some pathetic creature who was going to try to drag her off and force her to be mine, like the Phantom of the Opera.   (source)
  • I'm not that pathetic that I need empty compliments.   (source)
  • GEORGE (To NICK): Let her go. (MARTHA slumps to the floor in a sitting position) She'll be all right now.
    MARTHA (Pathetic): No; no, he is not dead; he is not dead.   (source)
  • Helmholtz had been restless throughout the entire scene; but when, pathetically mimed by the Savage, Juliet cried out:
      Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
      That sees into the bottom of my grief?   (source)
    pathetically = in a manner that arouses pity
  • There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more.   (source)
    pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
  • There was something pathetic in it that touched me.   (source)
  • His eloquence is forcible and touching; nor can I hear him, when he relates a pathetic incident or endeavours to move the passions of pity or love, without tears.   (source)
  • If the part is trifling she will have more credit in making something of it; and if she is so desperately bent against everything humorous, let her take Cottager's speeches instead of Cottager's wife's, and so change the parts all through; he is solemn and pathetic enough, I am sure.   (source)
  • Just that pathetic accordion in those dirt holes every night.   (source)
  • She wouldn't tolerate having it given to her by a lonely, pathetic old woman.   (source)
  • The PSF had slowed considerably, matching my pathetic pace.   (source)
  • As we walked, we saw kids heading in the opposite direction, from a row of pathetic wood cabins.   (source)
  • McCandless conveniently overlooked the fact that London himself had spent just a single winter in the North and that he'd died by his own hand on his California estate at the age of forty, a fatuous drunk, obese and pathetic, maintaining a sedentary existence that bore scant resemblance to the ideals he espoused in print.   (source)
  • He carried Errol to a perch just inside the back door and tried to stand him on it, but Errol flopped straight off again so Ron lay him on the draining board instead, muttering, "Pathetic."   (source)
  • Not only did McCandless die because he was stupid, one Alaska correspondent observed, but "the scope of his self-styled adventure was so small as to ring pathetic, squatting in a wrecked bus a few miles out of Healy, potting jays and squirrels, mistaking a caribou for a moose (pretty hard to do)…."   (source)
  • Downstairs, Hans and Max placed the mattress beneath the steps and built a wall of drop sheets at the side. ... It's quite pathetic.   (source)
  • In fact, probably the only thing that stopped her was the twitchingly pathetic, grinning face of Tommy Müller.   (source)
  • Was it the pathetic nature of the boy?   (source)
  • It felt like his arms snapped at each elbow, and he envisaged his heart seeping out of him and dropping pathetically to the ground.   (source)
    pathetically = in a manner that arouses pity
  • "I was invited," she says, not wanting to look pathetic, like she just showed up at Drew's house hoping to see him because his parents were out of town...   (source)
    pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
  • "How do you not mean to do what you did? You hit me in the face over and over again. You dragged me around by my hair and ripped it out of my head. You... Do you remember it?" The last question is nothing more than a pathetic, strangled whisper.   (source)
  • Eventually, thanks to my sparkling charm and wit—and because I'm so pathetic you take pity on me—you let me buy you ice cream.   (source)
  • When kids did stage desperate, pathetic breakouts, it had been in small groups of Reds, Oranges, and Yellows.   (source)
  • "The only other thing they coughed up was that if we hit Raleigh we'd gone too far south. And we had to beg for even that," Liam confessed. "It was really pathetic."   (source)
  • "My friends, my friends!" said the Voice so pathetically, with a note of such infinitely tender reproach that, behind their gas masks, even the policemen's eyes were momentarily dimmed with tears, "what is the meaning of this?"   (source)
    pathetically = in a manner that arouses pity
  • It is a great brotherhood, which adds something of the good-fellowship of the folk-song, of the feeling of solidarity of convicts, and of the desperate loyalty to one another of men condemned to death, to a condition of life arising out of the midst of danger, out of the tension and forlornness of death—seeking in a wholly unpathetic way a fleeting enjoyment of the hours as they come.†   (source)
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unpathetic means not and reverses the meaning of pathetic. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
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  • The comment was out-of-character and seemed a pathetic attempt at trying to worldly.
    pathetic = very bad
  • It was a pathetic attempt to claim credit for my work.
  • She made some pathetic excuse about having a prior commitment.
  • He got strangled and cut up more than twenty years ago! ... He's dead and it's pathetic that you sit here shivering in your own house to suffer for it.   (source)
    pathetic = embarrassingly bad
  • Julian started spreading this ridiculous rumor that Jack had hired some "hit man" to "get" him and Miles and Henry. This lie was so pathetic that people were actually laughing about him behind his back.   (source)
    pathetic = so bad it is laughable
  • The children pound their pathetic chests.   (source)
    pathetic = embarrassingly bad
  • ...after a while started crafting an email to Peter Van Houten about... But I didn't send it. It was too pathetic even for me.   (source)
  • "Friends?" Assef said, laughing. "You pathetic fool! Someday you'll wake up from your little fantasy and learn just how good of a friend he is."   (source)
  • Just like we did your pathetic little ally … what was her name?   (source)
  • Roy bowed his head. He was a pathetic liar, and he knew it.   (source)
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show 22 more with this conextual meaning
  • I helped Prometheus, I reminded myself. But it sounded pathetic even to my ears. How long would I cling to that handful of minutes, trying to cover myself as if with some threadbare blanket?   (source)
    pathetic = embarrassingly inadequate
  • A very pathetic, ill-prepared army, Thomas thought, but an army all the same.   (source)
    pathetic = so bad it is laughable or contemptible
  • "We usually just go for walks around the garden. He knows I like it outside. And we talk." It sounded pathetic after what some of the other girls had said.   (source)
    pathetic = embarrassingly bad
  • calling the governor 'a pathetic man with the morals of a streetwalker.'   (source)
    pathetic = so bad he is laughable
  • Redd thought this funny, in a pathetic sort of way, since neither the Lady of Clubs nor any of the other cabinet members knew where the Heart Crystal was.   (source)
  • We listened on the radio, and it was pathetic.   (source)
    pathetic = embarrassingly bad
  • I mean those particular cops were so dumb it was pathetic.   (source)
    pathetic = so bad it is laughable or contemptible
  • You're pathetic if you think this thing between us was real.   (source)
    pathetic = so bad that it is laughable
  • It's a pathetic, short glass tumbler. Is he some sort of conservationist? I'm going to need about eighteen of those right now.   (source)
    pathetic = so bad it is laughable or contemptible
  • They've got such pathetic little lives.   (source)
    pathetic = so bad it is laughable or contemptible (possibly also causing pity)
  • "This is pathetic," Fang whispered, and I turned to see him looking at a large cat, like a serval or a margay.   (source)
    pathetic = contemptible (unworthy or despicable) -- possibly mixed with pity
  • A pathetic exile, who stinks of her loneliness?   (source)
    pathetic = contemptible (unworthy of respect)
  • You were correct in noting earlier that I am a pathetic little man, dependent upon alcohol.   (source)
    pathetic = embarrassingly bad
  • No matter how many parties or dinners came and went, it would be rather pathetic to try to copy Kriss's look.   (source)
  • But I was pathetic, a blundering liability to my own team, always in the way of an opportune pass or unwittingly blocking an open lane.   (source)
  • It's pathetic—how a man can stand by and do nothing as a whole nation cleans out the garbage and makes itself great.   (source)
  • It was pathetic. They were still a half-mile from where Roy wanted to be, but he knew Dana wouldn't make it without pausing for a rest.   (source)
    pathetic = bad
  • He enjoyed the card games the most, followed by the few games of chess, despite being thoroughly pathetic at it.   (source)
    pathetic = embarrassingly bad
  • Our little backyard was dominated by my childhood swing set, which was looking pretty waterlogged and pathetic.   (source)
    pathetic = bad
  • Dear Liesel , I know you find me pathetic and loathsome (look that word up if you don't know it), but I must tell you that I am not so stupid as to not see your footprints in the library.   (source)
    pathetic = not adequate in behavior
  • I called her pathetic.   (source)
  • Fortunately, since I was walking pathetically slowly to make the most of my stalking experience, I don't end up face-first on the ground.   (source)
    pathetically = in a manner that is so bad it is laughable or contemptible -- possibly mixed with pity
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show 10 more examples with any meaning
  • Pathetic.†   (source)
  • And even if I hadn't, it is far more pathetic to make up a boyfriend than to just admit the truth.†   (source)
  • I know that's pathetic.†   (source)
  • A large man in a red-and-black-checked jacket and wool hat menacing a pathetic-looking figure cringing in the snow.†   (source)
  • My answer was a pathetic attempt at cultural defiance: "No, I don't go to Yale.†   (source)
  • His balled-up hands box pathetically in front of him.†   (source)
  • Newt attempted a pathetic smile.†   (source)
  • Disappointed with Ds, pleasantly satisfied with Cs, and celebratory about a B, I allowed my standards at school to become pathetic.†   (source)
  • I would sit on the stage, half undressed, as people walked past and the barker told them how pathetic I was.†   (source)
  • A desperate, pathetic ploy to save Sophie.†   (source)
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show 190 more examples with any meaning
  • A small, pathetic sound.†   (source)
  • You caught some pathetic reporter, and Potter's Dumbledore's favorite boy again.†   (source)
  • I am pathetic.†   (source)
  • Some one both pathetic and admirable in his docility.†   (source)
  • My voice sounded pathetic, even to me.†   (source)
  • They looked lopsided and pathetic in the center of the table.†   (source)
  • "That's pathetic.†   (source)
  • And of course I'm banging my knee and dropping my pencil and deteriorating into a pathetic pool of Jell-O. But I tried my best to sound cool as I said, "Hello, Granddad.†   (source)
  • That's kind of pathetic, isn't it?†   (source)
  • Sitting in a row of filthy metal cages were three of the most pathetic zoo animals I'd ever beheld: a zebra, a male albino lion, and some weird antelope thing I didn't know the name for.†   (source)
  • It's pathetic, but I'm glad to still have the newsletter.†   (source)
  • "Everyone else looks pathetic," she lied.†   (source)
  • My mother's little romance, I was further disappointed to learn, had been more pathetic than romantic; Mother, after all, was simply a very young woman from a very hick town.†   (source)
  • They set up the most pathetic wheezing and whining.†   (source)
  • You pathetic losers.†   (source)
  • In the end it's a pathetic pile, maybe three hundred weapons in all, half of them rusted.†   (source)
  • Pathetic hope!†   (source)
  • Look at their pathetic attempts to simulate a complex global ecosystem in their backyard.†   (source)
  • He looked so pathetic, So pathetic, those words!†   (source)
  • I almost don't hear him over the tramp of feet and the pathetic beat of my heart.†   (source)
  • It was true that she hadn't made it easy; she knows from experience that tough and weird is preferable to pathetic and vulnerable, and she wears her Goth persona like armor.†   (source)
  • It was part of this pathetic cycle my dad was caught in.†   (source)
  • My ragged clothes and my thin arms must have made me a pathetic sight.†   (source)
  • From then on, her main interest lay in feeding that pathetic baby pigeon.†   (source)
  • You had this multibillion-dollar company making mainframes, and if you were part of that, you'd think, Why screw around with these little pathetic computers?†   (source)
  • I'm pathetic.†   (source)
  • She might be broke and pathetic, but she could still scrounge up another brown paper bag.†   (source)
  • Pathetic.†   (source)
  • Adri shrank into a pathetic curtsy, head bobbing.†   (source)
  • She let out the most pathetic whimper, like a dog that had been kicked.†   (source)
  • "I'm not getting you down at all, am I?" he said pathetically.†   (source)
  • Some were even underage. the ones nearest the door were pathetically small.†   (source)
  • It's really pathetic.†   (source)
  • The window drawings somehow made the room even more pathetic, a word which here means "depressing and containing no windows," and the Baudelaire orphans felt a lump in their throats just looking at it.†   (source)
  • A small Asian man, pathetic in his tan windbreaker, curled in a bellying pool of blood.†   (source)
  • And a few of the blokes who've surnmitted with me were nearly as pathetic as you.†   (source)
  • "Pathetic," I say, even though I'm just as grateful for the pause.†   (source)
  • Pathetically inadequate.†   (source)
  • SCORPIUS laughs, pathetically grateful.†   (source)
  • Pathetic.†   (source)
  • "I'm totally pathetic."†   (source)
  • I have got to be the most pathetic human being on the planet. polynomials term: variables multiplied by a coefficient degree of polynomial = the degree of the term with the highest degree Hello?†   (source)
  • She had seen him cry before, but never since he stopped drinking … and never in those days unless he was very drunk and pathetically remorseful.†   (source)
  • Not your pathetic lives.†   (source)
  • It was pathetic.†   (source)
  • I looked up when he said this, startled by such a pathetically inadequate observation.†   (source)
  • Draconian killers destroying all that lies within their path due to their own recklessness and pathetic beliefs.†   (source)
  • He stood where the Shrike had stood, his own arms extended in a pathetic imitation of the deadly perfection I had just witnessed, but there was no sign on Alpha's bland, Bikura face that he had seen the creature.†   (source)
  • It was pathetic.†   (source)
  • It must have been a pathetic exchange.†   (source)
  • And we retreated down, making a long pathetic loop, back the way we'd come.†   (source)
  • How pathetic.†   (source)
  • "You are pathetic," I told her one night when it was particularly sickening, involving about twenty I love yous and four punkins.†   (source)
  • Wooing her was pathetically easy.†   (source)
  • But having destroyed and consumed her, he moveson, not sufficiently touched, it seems to me, by the pathetic spectacle he has caused.†   (source)
  • Did I use the word pathetic twice?†   (source)
  • A pathetically few things— some of your baby things, an old hat your father used to wear …†   (source)
  • There were the few pathetic mementos of thirty years in other people's homes.†   (source)
  • Oh, I wouldn't mind," she says, sounding pathetically weak to herself.†   (source)
  • It was his one last thing to hang onto, his rep as someone who could take a belt whipping, who could take a beating in the neighborhood and still go back risking more — it was this pathetic plea from the pavement I remember.†   (source)
  • All I want to do is chew a pathetic little tasteless chunk of gum now and then.†   (source)
  • Do you want to hear my pathetic story?†   (source)
  • He seemed so pathetic.†   (source)
  • Pathetic.†   (source)
  • She pulled off her clothes and danced desperately, her thin limbs pale and shaking, her movements pathetic and jerky.†   (source)
  • Alice Evans was trying to make fire hydrants out of clay, which so far just looked like pathetic lumps.†   (source)
  • You're so pathetic.†   (source)
  • It is the little, pathetic attempts at Quality that kill.†   (source)
  • I have to suffer and be in this pathetic state for them to give me the help I've needed all along.†   (source)
  • I think I said something pathetic like: "It's all right, I didn't see anything much," which hung stupidly in the air.†   (source)
  • He was so pathetic she couldn't bring herself to yell at him.†   (source)
  • It hadn't worked, and he had dismissed the attempt when he could no longer ignore that it felt like a pathetic falsehood.†   (source)
  • I'm kind of a pathetic cook, but I love all the gadgets and tools, all the shiny surfaces."†   (source)
  • Pena lay down his pathetic key ring, picked up the phone, and dialed headquarters in the capital.†   (source)
  • I sometimes had to lift the flap (our signal that an adult was approaching) and so I saw their pathetic struggles even as they talked about school and the movies.†   (source)
  • He hoped that didn't sound too pathetic.†   (source)
  • Her breasts were pathetic.†   (source)
  • He was dragging his elbow slowly up one spinal muscle and staring down the street, where the answer to her question was everywhere pathetically evident.†   (source)
  • Absolutely pathetic.†   (source)
  • "Pathetic, that's what we are," Inigo said.†   (source)
  • Truth be told, he was downright pathetic.†   (source)
  • Their final victim was the most pathetic.†   (source)
  • Look pathetic.†   (source)
  • Sierra, I am pathetic.†   (source)
  • She was a nice girl, maybe a little pathetic—†   (source)
  • Riding along on the back of anyone who'd carry him was the Threadbare Excuse, a small, pathetic figure whose clothes were worn and tattered and who mumbled the same things again and again, in a low but piercing voice: —Well, I've been sick—but the page was torn out—1 missed the bus—but no one cis(' did it—well, I've been sick—but the page was torn out—1 missed the bus—but no one else did it."†   (source)
  • Queenie comes to my feet and stares up at me with a pathetic combination of bewilderment and gratitude.†   (source)
  • Household treasures, valuable carpets, silver candelabra, prayer books, Bibles, and other religious articles littered the dusty ground beneath a wonderfully blue sky; pathetic objects which looked as though they had never belonged to anyone.†   (source)
  • I must have seemed quite pathetic there—all wet and shivering.†   (source)
  • Pathetic.†   (source)
  • Rabbits, sans whambam; a pathetic notion.†   (source)
  • "You guys are a pathetic excuse for a soccer team," she told the boys, her voice breaking with anger.†   (source)
  • "Oh, yes, sir," replied the rabbit, with a rather pathetic attempt to sound brisk and ready.†   (source)
  • You looked like what you are—desperate—while you pathetically tried to throw yourself at a guy who was clearly telling you he didn't want you anymore.†   (source)
  • "I know I never will make a fine hand like you, Johnnie," she said pathetically.†   (source)
  • The former bore me, mainly because they're pathetic; and the latter, quite frankly, are hard to find.†   (source)
  • My motives were so pathetically obvious.†   (source)
  • Goddamned pathetic.†   (source)
  • Without meaning to, the woman looked at Jose Arcadio and examined his magnificent animal in repose with a kind of pathetic fervor.†   (source)
  • NORA WAS cautious around me but was almost pathetically grateful that I wasn't outright hostile.†   (source)
  • She tried to recover from her fright and to look alluring, but the attempt was so pathetic that it saddened Augustus.†   (source)
  • It was pathetic really.†   (source)
  • "I felt pathetic," she says.†   (source)
  • He didn't even bother to glance out of his car at this eager and pathetic boy.†   (source)
  • This sounded so lame I almost had to cover my ears against its patheticness.†   (source)
  • Don't be pathetic.†   (source)
  • Whining was pathetic, but hate got things done.†   (source)
  • It's pathetic really.†   (source)
  • "That's pathetic," said Charles.†   (source)
  • And a man's voice, Jenks's: "Look at you, you're pathetic.†   (source)
  • There was a soft, pathetic tone to his voice as he spoke these words.†   (source)
  • They got into the chicken coops and ate the chickens alive, leaving behind a whirl of feathers and a pile of pathetic little bones.†   (source)
  • He was someone in the know who was always striving pathetically to find out what was going on.†   (source)
  • Had that pathetic first son of hers succumbed?†   (source)
  • Emily was huddled next to her mother, trying to look pathetic.†   (source)
  • Suddenly he felt incredibly pathetic.†   (source)
  • Just kind of pathetic.†   (source)
  • Pathetic!†   (source)
  • But I found this little revolver pathetic and I simply didn't believe, indeed I was certain, he couldn't possibly use it.†   (source)
  • "You were healing," is my pathetic reply.†   (source)
  • It was so pathetic, so awful.†   (source)
  • Another whole subfield claims the bridges were built by humans—some ancient, long-lost, fantastically advanced civilization that either died out (slowly, pathetically; or spectacularly as the result of some catastrophic mistake) or moved on to a higher level of existence.†   (source)
  • …no authority except their own, without church or congregation, without bread or wine, body or blood; the community "leaders" without followers; old men of sixty or more still caught up in post-Civil-War dreams of freedom within segregation; the pathetic ones who possessed nothing beyond their dreams of being gentlemen, who held small jobs or drew small pensions, and all pretending to be engaged in some vast, though obscure, enterprise, who affected the pseudo-courtly manners of certain…†   (source)
  • I wonder how long it took her to scrape that pathetic little hole in the rock?†   (source)
  • The mission was doomed from the start, ill-planned and pathetically amateurish, and Hale was a poor choice.†   (source)
  • To use her failings, her pathetic choice of profession.†   (source)
  • It was common, acceptable, not to be able to read, but a man who wouldn't fight, couldn't fight, was a pathetic thing.†   (source)
  • Bourne hung up the phone and looked over at the two pathetically curious old men on the couch.†   (source)
  • She tells me that before the revolution Cuba was a pathetic place, a parody of a country.†   (source)
  • What knowledge Joe had about Flight 353 seemed, however, to be pathetically inadequate.†   (source)
  • Gaten's grave was a pathetic sight.†   (source)
  • "Pathetic," he whispers.†   (source)
  • Pathetic.†   (source)
  • One very small splash, and the pathetic little tale that was his life would soon be done.†   (source)
  • They are pathetically well-adjusted.†   (source)
  • "The charred bodies of children and babies have made pathetic piles in the middle of the remains of the marketplace," the Associated Press reported after one such bombing incident.†   (source)
  • His shirt studs were ostentatiously too large, but it was the pathetic ostentation of an heirloom, intricate pieces of old-fashioned workmanship, that had probably come to him through four generations, like his business.†   (source)
  • (MARTHA slumps to the floor in a sitting position) She'll be all right now MARTHA (Pathetic) No; no, he is not dead; he is not dead.†   (source)
  • There is nothing in modern writing about the language that is more pathetic than attempts to fix the blame for the "problem" (whatever the problem is understood to be) on this or that small group.†   (source)
  • We are sad, pathetic creatures, Mr. McLean, and there is little hope for us in this world.†   (source)
  • I'd considered calling him, but I always think that's kind of pathetic when a girl calls a guy.†   (source)
  • When I tried to coax it from her she crossed her small arms tightly around it, carrying it all the way to the car herself, the whole small picture of her both endearing and pathetic.†   (source)
  • Euridice asked in a pathetic high voice.†   (source)
  • Life is not a series of pathetic, meaningless actions.†   (source)
  • But then you hear how pathetic you sound, and your words trail off into silence, and your heart breaks.†   (source)
  • I had to wear some pathetic, raggedy thing from, like, three years ago.†   (source)
  • And so the pathetic story-pitcher turns to pop science—to Jonathan Gottschall's new book, "The Storytelling Animal," for instance— for some scientific, or at least speculative, ideas about what makes stories work and why we like them.†   (source)
  • Stuart said softly, a pathetic voice, "General Lee, if you please…"†   (source)
  • On the contrary, Socrates--according to Plato--contends that the unmanly and pathetic practice of pleading for clemency disgraces the justice system of Athens.†   (source)
  • You're so pathetic."†   (source)
  • I grimaced at how pathetic they were.†   (source)
  • I tried to explain Mike's pathetic attempts to be a "people.†   (source)
  • Or if you felt a tiny bit sorry for him for being insecure enough to give himself a little pathetic goddam glamour.†   (source)
  • There was such a pathetic note of hope in his question that it roused me from my professor's trance and I belatedly realized what I was doing to the man.†   (source)
  • It was not a building to sag pathetically.†   (source)
  • What hurt most was when she would beg me pathetically to tell her what was wrong.†   (source)
  • Oh, wouldn't that be pathetic?†   (source)
  • ROS (pathetic) : I wanted to make you happy.†   (source)
  • Like shipwrecked people, we huddled together in a warmth and courtesy that was pure and pathetic.†   (source)
  • That makes his attempts to do research in this, of all fields, rather pathetic.†   (source)
  • Like you, sir, I have abandoned that pathetic faith with its pretexts and evasions.†   (source)
  • Pushing through the game comes a scrawny teen-age girl, dressed in an outfit that is a pathetic attempt to imitate that of the Jets.†   (source)
  • Then she started to moan: a low, pathetic, sobbing moan.†   (source)
  • RACHEL (Pathetically) I can't— JUDGE May I remind you, Miss Brown, that you are testifying under oath, and it is unlawful to withhold pertinent information.†   (source)
  • It was pathetic; or you could make a joke of it.†   (source)
  • Quite pathetic.†   (source)
  • Pathetic the way he's let himself go.†   (source)
  • A social system based on such a false premise, as well as its political application, struck them as pathetically amateurish and made no sense to them.†   (source)
  • I strove to wake, to brush aside those pathetic flutterings, but strive as I would I could not …. at last I sat up, sleep and dream alike banished, wide awake now.†   (source)
  • She becomes pathetically relieved and eager.†   (source)
  • Kinda pathetic.†   (source)
  • It was pathetic the way Chooka tried to block.†   (source)
  • Seeing her stand there, looking about her with a lost pathetic face, unconsciously holding her hands to her cheeks as if in pain, he was sorry for her, and left her alone to undress.†   (source)
  • Then he flashed a pathetic grin, his eyes settling on Thomas.†   (source)
  • It is quite pathetic, Monsieur Boustouler.†   (source)
  • It's a juvenile display, the whole act, and pathetic; but it's something I understand.†   (source)
  • Jorge gave that pathetic smile again, then let out a small bark of a laugh.†   (source)
  • My muscles were returning to their pathetic mortal flabbiness.†   (source)
  • He was thinking more along the lines of, "We are pathetic ants!†   (source)
  • It was cold, and I probably looked pathetic perched there eating my sandwiches, but I didn't care.†   (source)
  • He did not say, "That pathetic flea-ridden beast is better off than the greatest ruler of men.†   (source)
  • "For the world's greatest assassin, this is pathetic," said Dorian, stepping from the doorway.†   (source)
  • But they don't know what a pathetic mess I turn into when Leroy's beating on me.†   (source)
  • They usually love any story that makes the Rusties sound pathetic.†   (source)
  • "Have you ever seen anything quite as pathetic?" said Malfoy.†   (source)
  • "Hedwig — Hedwig — " But the owl lay motionless and pathetic as a toy on the floor of her cage.†   (source)
  • He felt pathetic, and embarrassed about hiding.†   (source)
  • Woodhouse had nailed our dog and our pathetic, codependent existence.†   (source)
  • But I thank you for reminding me how pathetic children are.†   (source)
  • "Pathetic, Weasley," said Snape, after a while.†   (source)
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show 1 examples with meaning too rare to warrant focus
  • He was vulnerable there, because to me they were all pretty much alike—Voltaire and Moliere and the laws of motion and the Magna Carta and the Pathetic Fallacy and Tess of the d'Urbervilles—and I worked indiscriminately on all of them.   (source)
    pathetic = pathetic fallacy refers to the tendency to ascribe human emotions to inanimate objects or animals
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