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pathetic
in a sentence
grouped by contextual meaning

pathetic as in:  Her pathetic look saddened us.

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She was pathetic as she tried to salvage her dignity.
pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    The shabby room struck her as extraordinarily pathetic.
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    How pathetic that I felt safer in someone else's house than in my own, right?  (source)
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    I am begging. I am pathetic. Tears make my face hot.  (source)
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Show 10 more with 4 word variations
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    She wouldn't tolerate having it given to her by a lonely, pathetic old woman.  (source)
    pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
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    The owl flopped about pathetically, its talons scratching the door, bashing its head in a panic.  (source)
    pathetically = in a manner that arouses pity
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    This sounded so lame I almost had to cover my ears against its patheticness.†  (source)
    patheticness = the quality of being pitiful
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.
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    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)
    unpathetic = not arousing pity
    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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    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)
    pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
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    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
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    That meant no one had to witness my patheticness.†  (source)
    patheticness = the quality of being pitiful
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    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)
    pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
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    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
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    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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pathetic as in:  a pathetic attempt to insult me

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It was a pathetic attempt to insult me.
pathetic = so bad it was laughable
Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    She made some pathetic excuse about having a prior commitment.
    pathetic = very bad
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    It was a pathetic attempt to claim credit for my work.
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    The comment was out-of-character and seemed a pathetic attempt at trying to worldly.
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Show 10 more with 2 word variations
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    A pathetic exile, who stinks of her loneliness?  (source)
    pathetic = contemptible (unworthy of respect)
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    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
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    Just like we did your pathetic little ally … what was her name?  (source)
    pathetic = embarrassingly bad
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    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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    Get yourself together! This is pathetic.  (source)
    pathetic = embarrassingly bad
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    The children pound their pathetic chests.  (source)
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    Roy bowed his head. He was a pathetic liar, and he knew it.  (source)
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    You were correct in noting earlier that I am a pathetic little man, dependent upon alcohol.  (source)
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    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)
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    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
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rare meaning

Show 1 with this contextual meaning
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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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