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pathetic
in a sentence
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pathetic as in:  Her pathetic look saddened us.

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • "They were a pathetic looking bunch: mostly skin and bones, clad in rags with makeshift footwear, and nervous," he wrote.   (source)
    pathetic = pitiful (arousing 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)
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show 42 more with this conextual meaning
  • You can make yourselves sound like pathetic, cute little children so we'll love you and be nice to you.   (source)
  • 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)
  • One of them was a pathetic cry, Onwumbiko— "Death, I implore you."   (source)
  • You talk about some pathetic, tortured-looking little faces.   (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)
  • Jane and Ruby almost always cry when I come to the pathetic parts.   (source)
  • 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)
  • She wouldn't tolerate having it given to her by a lonely, pathetic old woman.   (source)
  • Just that pathetic accordion in those dirt holes every night.   (source)
  • As we walked, we saw kids heading in the opposite direction, from a row of pathetic wood cabins.   (source)
  • The PSF had slowed considerably, matching my pathetic pace.   (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)
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • 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
  • That kind of puzzled us because the stories were all very pathetic and almost everybody died.   (source)
    pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
  • And the choir are going to sing four lovely pathetic songs that are pretty near as good as hymns.   (source)
  • I used the most pathetic language I could think of and said 'thou' and 'thee.'   (source)
  • Oh, it was such a pathetic tale, Diana.   (source)
  • It's so pathetic.   (source)
  • 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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pathetic as in:  a pathetic attempt to insult me

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • She made some pathetic excuse about having a prior commitment.
    pathetic = very bad
  • It was a pathetic attempt to claim credit for my work.
  • The comment was out-of-character and seemed a pathetic attempt at trying to worldly.
  • 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
  • Just like we did your pathetic little ally … what was her name?   (source)
  • 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
  • "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)
    pathetic = embarrassingly bad
  • The children pound their pathetic chests.   (source)
  • ...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)
  • 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
  • Some scenes from early in the battle, Rackham's tiny force looking pathetic against the vast power of the main bugger fleet.   (source)
    pathetic = in a manner that is so bad it is laughable or contemptible -- possibly mixed with pity
  • 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
  • We listened on the radio, and it was pathetic.   (source)
    pathetic = embarrassingly bad
  • 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)
    pathetic = so bad he is laughable
  • 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
  • "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
  • They've got such pathetic little lives.   (source)
    pathetic = so bad it is laughable or contemptible (possibly also causing pity)
  • 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
  • You were correct in noting earlier that I am a pathetic little man, dependent upon alcohol.   (source)
    pathetic = embarrassingly bad
  • Some were even underage — the ones nearest the door were pathetically small.   (source)
    pathetically = in a manner that is so bad it is laughable or contemptible -- possibly mixed with pity
  • He enjoyed the card games the most, followed by the few games of chess, despite being thoroughly pathetic at it.   (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)
  • 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
  • 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)
    pathetic = embarrassingly bad
  • 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)
  • 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
  • I'd hide behind an opened newspaper, like some obsessed, pathetic flasher, filled similarly with hopeless yearning for a girl who'd doubtless flee me as if I were a troll.†   (source)
  • And even if I hadn't, it is far more pathetic to make up a boyfriend than to just admit the truth.†   (source)
  • And she isn't even upset about it, which just makes me feel 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)
  • There was something pathetic about the target, who seemed especially wounded by the bully's treatment.†   (source)
  • His balled-up hands box pathetically in front of him.†   (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)
  • Disappointed with Ds, pleasantly satisfied with Cs, and celebratory about a B, I allowed my standards at school to become pathetic.†   (source)
  • He called me pathetic.†   (source)
  • I would sit on the stage, half undressed, as people walked past and the barker told them how pathetic I was.†   (source)
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show 190 more examples with any meaning
  • My voice sounded pathetic, even to me.†   (source)
  • Some one both pathetic and admirable in his docility.†   (source)
  • Now some pathetic sod had wandered in off the street, looking for directions to some wedding from the looks of it.†   (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)
  • "Please, Alby," Ben pleaded, his shaky voice so pathetic that Thomas couldn't believe it was the same guy who'd tried to bite his throat off the day before.†   (source)
  • "Have you ever seen anything quite as pathetic?" said Malfoy.†   (source)
  • But back then her world had been pathetically tiny: a few parks, the path to littlie school, one corner of the greenbelt where she would sneak in to spy on uglies.†   (source)
  • They looked lopsided and pathetic in the center of the table.†   (source)
  • In the end it's a pathetic pile, maybe three hundred weapons in all, half of them rusted.†   (source)
  • That's kind of pathetic, isn't it?†   (source)
  • Look at their pathetic attempts to simulate a complex global ecosystem in their backyard.†   (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)
  • Okay, if you're like me, you're single and pathetic and forever a disappointment to your Persian mother and father and grandparents, who see you as a failure for not having a mate and children by now because you're pathetic.†   (source)
  • marks, and Arthur repeated them, as if nothing in their pathetic lives had changed.†   (source)
  • I have got to be the most pathetic human being on the planet.†   (source)
  • He didn't want to look too eager; he didn't want to look pathetic.†   (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)
  • "Pathetic," the Senator says, now turning to my father.†   (source)
  • Her long, silver hair flowed around her beautiful face, and she smiled as Celaena set down her miserably pathetic knife.†   (source)
  • A small part of me is disappointed he showed up today, but most of me is stupidly, pathetically happy.†   (source)
  • It was part of this pathetic cycle my dad was caught in.†   (source)
  • Haymitch takes a swipe with his knife but Peeta deflects it so easily it's pathetic.†   (source)
  • Something has snapped in him, revealing a desperate child, a pathetic, hopeless thing trying to hold on to his favorite toy.†   (source)
  • He looked so pathetic, So pathetic, those words!†   (source)
  • But I thank you for reminding me how pathetic children are.†   (source)
  • My ragged clothes and my thin arms must have made me a pathetic sight.†   (source)
  • He was whimpering pathetically for water.†   (source)
  • Envisioning the happiness that would spread across Nacha's face, she didn't notice that with every step the scenes of misery around her, pathetic and horrifying, were growing worse.†   (source)
  • Adri shrank into a pathetic curtsy, head bobbing.†   (source)
  • Do you want to hear my pathetic story?†   (source)
  • This signal simply communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense of how far that being is from the place of his birth.†   (source)
  • She let out the most pathetic whimper, like a dog that had been kicked.†   (source)
  • She might be broke and pathetic, but she could still scrounge up another brown paper bag.†   (source)
  • You are our contact, Nguyen Xuan, and you have adopted this pathetic disguise to discreetly check for weaponry.†   (source)
  • SCORPIUS laughs, pathetically grateful.†   (source)
  • Just the sight of the bundled painting, lonely and pathetic, had scrambled me top to bottom, as if a satellite signal from the past had burst in and jammed all other transmissions.†   (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)
  • "Pathetic," I say, even though I'm just as grateful for the pause.†   (source)
  • Draconian killers destroying all that lies within their path due to their own recklessness and pathetic beliefs.†   (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)
  • We searched every cranny of my father's house, which didn't take long, since it's so pathetically empty.†   (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 pathetically few things— some of your baby things, an old hat your father used to wear ...†   (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)
  • 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)
  • Pathetic.†   (source)
  • As pathetic as it sounds, Marley had become my male-bonding soul mate, my near-constant companion, my friend.†   (source)
  • She pulled off her clothes and danced desperately, her thin limbs pale and shaking, her movements pathetic and jerky.†   (source)
  • Pena lay down his pathetic key ring, picked up the phone, and dialed headquarters in the capital.†   (source)
  • Possibly my crippling clumsiness was seen as endearing rather than pathetic, casting me as a damsel in distress.†   (source)
  • But having destroyed and consumed her, he moveson, not sufficiently touched, it seems to me, by the pathetic spectacle he has caused.†   (source)
  • I have to suffer and be in this pathetic state for them to give me the help I've needed all along.†   (source)
  • It must have been a pathetic exchange.†   (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)
  • It looked like a pathetic version of a grand jury hearing from an episode of one of those courtroom dramas on TV.†   (source)
  • Wooing her was pathetically easy.†   (source)
  • But Mrs. Kleermaker had jumped to her feet with pathetic eagerness and was already stacking plates and cups.... JUST TWO NIGHTS later the same scene was repeated.†   (source)
  • When his screaming got too pathetic to bear, our grim-faced mother brought in his cage and set it on the floor by the window, where Methuselah continued his loud, random commentary.†   (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)
  • No matter which force they were with, they were pathetic.†   (source)
  • How pathetic it is to describe these things which can't truly be described," he said, his voice loci almost to a whisper.†   (source)
  • Then he swore, pathetically, under his breath, and held the Mortal Cup out for Valentine to take, though his hand shook like a leaf in a high wind.†   (source)
  • You really are pathetic, aren't you?†   (source)
  • "You are pathetic," I told her one night when it was particularly sickening, involving about twenty I love yous and four punkins.†   (source)
  • We endlessly criticized the pathetic peasant girl, Giselle, who did nothing with her life other than desire the jewelry and lifestyle of the wealthy.†   (source)
  • Half a block away, on a side street, a bimbo box, a minivan, grinds its four pathetic cylinders into action.†   (source)
  • Absolutely pathetic.†   (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)
  • And we retreated down, making a long pathetic loop, back the way we'd come.†   (source)
  • "You guys are a pathetic excuse for a soccer team," she told the boys, her voice breaking with anger.†   (source)
  • Her breasts were pathetic.†   (source)
  • I'm totally 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)
  • As pathetic as I would have felt after the fact, one friendly smile from me might have been enough to have him spilling Kjirsten's entire life story "Sorry," I told Whitney.†   (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)
  • He hoped that didn't sound too pathetic.†   (source)
  • In the lee of a boulder no larger than a dishwasher, the climbers hunkered in a pathetic row on a patch of gale-scoured ice.†   (source)
  • My parents had been cool about the whole thing, but the reek of my pathetic was starting to make me sick.†   (source)
  • My feelings of tenderness and pity were undermined by the sight of them crossing the sidewalk in their bundled clothing, the child determinedly weeping, his mother drooping as she walked, wild-haired, a wretched and pathetic pair.†   (source)
  • What they did was not to gain intel, only to elevate their weak and pathetic lives to a status for some reason they have only dreamed of.†   (source)
  • She was a nice girl, maybe a little pathetic—†   (source)
  • The former bore me, mainly because they're pathetic; and the latter, quite frankly, are hard to find.†   (source)
  • She was probably making some pathetic play for attention, and I didn't have time for this crap.†   (source)
  • We don't need these pathetic lame-o's anyway.†   (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)
  • I must have seemed quite pathetic there—all wet and shivering.†   (source)
  • It's pathetic, I know, but I'm as excited as a little kid on Christmas Day (or as me on Christmas Day, to be perfectly honest).†   (source)
  • Alice Evans was trying to make fire hydrants out of clay, which so far just looked like pathetic lumps.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Helm looked and looked, paced round and round the room with pursed lips, touching this and that-Kenyon's old baseball mitt, Kenyon's mud-spattered work boots, his pathetic abandoned spectacles.†   (source)
  • My motives were so pathetically obvious.†   (source)
  • He went to her and brought her, still tied hand and foot, so that she could watch the final pathetic struggle of the man in black three hundred feet below.†   (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)
  • Goddamned pathetic.†   (source)
  • She tried to recover from her fright and to look alluring, but the attempt was so pathetic that it saddened Augustus.†   (source)
  • "That's what I keep a-thinkin'," the poor mother said, clinging pathetically to that which gave her consolation and cheer.†   (source)
  • Rabbits, sans whambam; a pathetic notion.†   (source)
  • This sounded so lame I almost had to cover my ears against its patheticness.†   (source)
  • Queenie comes to my feet and stares up at me with a pathetic combination of bewilderment and gratitude.†   (source)
  • The mission was doomed from the start, ill-planned and pathetically amateurish, and Hale was a poor choice.†   (source)
  • I'm pathetic.†   (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)
  • Her desolation was pathetic as she sat with her tempestuous, proud, lovely head bowed, her shoulders sagging, her spirit melting.†   (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)
  • Oh, wouldn't that be pathetic?†   (source)
  • I'm kind of a pathetic cook, but I love all the gadgets and tools, all the shiny surfaces.†   (source)
  • I wonder how long it took her to scrape that pathetic little hole in the rock?†   (source)
  • "No," sniffled Bellagrog pathetically.†   (source)
  • Better to treat it with contempt, like the pathetic lie it is.†   (source)
  • I couldn't believe I had raised my hand in aggression against another prisoner, especially this pathetic nutjob.†   (source)
  • It was clear that in a twisted way she was trying to save her family the added pain of having Kathy publicly branded as some kind of pathetic sexual victim, cheating on her husband-to-be right up until their vows.†   (source)
  • Ozzie stopped not far from the shoes, raised his umbrella, and looked at the pallid, pathetic face of a man he'd met only twice.†   (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)
  • 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)
  • I wanted to walk over there and take the plate — his pathetic excuse to distract himself— and throw it on the ground.†   (source)
  • "Oh, yes, sir," replied the rabbit, with a rather pathetic attempt to sound brisk and ready.†   (source)
  • "That's pathetic," said Charles.†   (source)
  • Some of them are so far from pathetic, so far from meaningless as to be beyond reason, maybe beyond forgiveness.†   (source)
  • To use her failings, her pathetic choice of profession.†   (source)
  • Suddenly he felt incredibly pathetic.†   (source)
  • Someday, he was going to be very disappointed when he saw me for who I really was—a weak, pathetic person.†   (source)
  • But as if he senses my pathetic attempts at bravery, his hand squeezes, and pain lances through my skull.†   (source)
  • Prescriptive grammar has passed out of the realm, of criticism, where it sat for two hundred years, to become instead a branch of cultural heraldry.... 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)
  • I'd considered calling him, but I always think that's kind of pathetic when a girl calls a guy.†   (source)
  • It is the little, pathetic attempts at Quality that kill.†   (source)
  • racial progress with Utopian schemes for building black business empires; preachers ordained by 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 southern congressmen and bowed and nodded as they passed like senile old roosters in a barnyard; the younge†   (source)
  • Conklin was hobbling pathetically toward the gates, turning constantly, the gun extended, his destination a car outside in the road.†   (source)
  • I tried to explain Mike's pathetic attempts to be a "people.†   (source)
  • "You stole my husband!" she screamed at me, then she reached for Jorge, stretching her arms pathetically, her fingers moving like worms.†   (source)
  • And when we tried to imitate England, France, Germany, Holland, and even Spain, in seizing regions of the world, it was pathetic.†   (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)
  • I snarl at myself, at how pathetic I am.†   (source)
  • When Mama and Aunt went downstairs to prepare the midday meal, Elder Sister took pity on her pathetic sibling by letting her stretch out on one of the beds.†   (source)
  • Marijke draped the tablecloth around him, then reached beneath it and pulled the pathetic wet clothes off.†   (source)
  • She held her thin arms up in a pathetic gesture of resistance, but the wolf snatched her up in one swift bite.†   (source)
  • It's pathetic in a grown man.†   (source)
  • This kid's look, punk-grunge-neopunk-whatever, was already as dated as spats, making him look less threatening than he thought and more pathetic than he would ever be able to comprehend.†   (source)
  • [Pushing through the gang comes a scrawny teen-age girl, dressed in an outfit that is a pathetic attempt to imitate that of the Jets†   (source)
  • It's too pathetic to think about leaving him a message.†   (source)
  • It was all sad and rather pathetic and made Reed want that beer even more, because his neighborhood looked exactly the same as this one.†   (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)
  • 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)
  • I skipped the part where I really loved her and I used to call her Mommy because it sounded so dumb and pathetic.†   (source)
  • Gaten's grave was a pathetic sight.†   (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)
  • It was not a building to sag pathetically.†   (source)
  • I thought about the nightmares, the anxiety, the depression, the nagging feeling that I was a pathetic coward.†   (source)
  • Or if you felt a tiny bit sorry for him for being insecure enough to give himself a little pathetic goddam glamour.†   (source)
  • Chamberlain could see the men shuffling, strange pathetic spectacle, dusty, dirty, ragged men, heads down, faces down: it reminded him of a history book picture of impressed seamen in the last war with England.†   (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)
  • But then you hear how pathetic you sound, and your words trail off into silence, and your heart breaks.†   (source)
  • I grimaced at how pathetic they were.†   (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)
  • Detroit was not a fort like the pathetic wooden stockades of the Americans.†   (source)
  • Every time I heard a bark, especially a deep one, rushes of Cooper would make me feel empty, pathetic and helpless.†   (source)
  • ROS (pathetic) : I wanted to make you happy.†   (source)
  • Don't be pathetic.†   (source)
  • But they had trusted the sincerity of my wishes, and once again I had become a victim of my own fraudulent, pathetic bravado.†   (source)
  • Pathetic the way he's let himself go.†   (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)
  • Like shipwrecked people, we huddled together in a warmth and courtesy that was pure and pathetic.†   (source)
  • Quite pathetic.†   (source)
  • Or was now pathetically languishing in a lunatic asylum, so that the use of the past tense is merely sorrowfully euphemistic?†   (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)
  • The little figures, so helpless and pathetic if one did no, know the truth, stood motionless in forest and glade and plaint The camera roamed restlessly from one to the other: already.†   (source)
  • Then she started to moan: a low, pathetic, sobbing moan.†   (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)
  • She becomes pathetically relieved and eager.†   (source)
  • She had seemed to be favored and happy and she stood there pathetic-homeless-looking— horrible.†   (source)
  • There was her picture of herself, pathetically caricatured, the blonde hair in strings, the dark eyes like blotches, the lovely figure drawn into flat, ungracious planes...It faded, and abruptly the image of Powell-Powerful-Protective-Paternal rushed at him, torrentially destructive.†   (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)
  • Were they listening to my pathetic attempts to reason with her?†   (source)
  • Jorge gave that pathetic smile again, then let out a small bark of a laugh.†   (source)
  • It was a pathetic response to such a sweet admission, but I simply wasn't prepared.†   (source)
  • He was thinking more along the lines of, "We are pathetic ants!†   (source)
  • My muscles were returning to their pathetic mortal flabbiness.†   (source)
  • They were silent and slow, pathetic ruined things that once were human.†   (source)
  • It's a juvenile display, the whole act, and pathetic; but it's something I understand.†   (source)
  • You caught some pathetic reporter, and Potter's Dumbledore's favorite boy again.†   (source)
  • Alice would spend the night with me if I was pathetic enough to ask her to.†   (source)
  • He felt pathetic, and embarrassed about hiding.†   (source)
  • I feel a little pathetic with him assisting me—I can walk on my own.†   (source)
  • "Pathetic, Weasley," said Snape, after a while.†   (source)
  • It is quite pathetic, Monsieur Boustouler.†   (source)
  • He didn't even bother to glance out of his car at this eager and pathetic boy.†   (source)
  • Then he flashed a pathetic grin, his eyes settling on Thomas.†   (source)
  • There were the few pathetic mementos of thirty years in other people's homes.†   (source)
  • Pathetic really: I don't like lollipops.†   (source)
  • Pathetic, that the only person he could really talk to was a rakunk.†   (source)
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meaning too rare to warrant focus:

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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