The Only Use of
pathetic
in
All Quiet on the Western Front
- 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.†
p. 272.7unpathetic = not arousing pitystandard 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.
Definitions:
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(1)
(pathetic as in: Her pathetic look saddened us.) pitiful (arousing pity)
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(2)
(pathetic as in: a pathetic attempt to insult me) very bad -- possibly so bad it is laughable (possibly mixed with some feeling of pity)
-
(3)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Much more rarely, and typically just in classic literature, pathetic can mean "relating to emotions". One fairly modern example is in the book, A Separate Peace, where the expression pathetic fallacy is used to describe the non-rational human tendency to ascribe human emotions to inanimate objects or animals.