All 12 Uses
pathetic
in
The Book Thief
(Edited)
- Just that pathetic accordion in those dirt holes every night.
p. 43.6pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
- In fact, probably the only thing that stopped her was the twitchingly pathetic, grinning face of Tommy Müller.
p. 79.4
- It's pathetic—how a man can stand by and do nothing as a whole nation cleans out the garbage and makes itself great.
p. 105.5pathetic = embarrassingly bad
- He enjoyed the card games the most, followed by the few games of chess, despite being thoroughly pathetic at it.
p. 175.5
- Downstairs, Hans and Max placed the mattress beneath the steps and built a wall of drop sheets at the side. ... It's quite pathetic.
p. 208.2pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
- It felt like his arms snapped at each elbow, and he envisaged his heart seeping out of him and dropping pathetically to the ground.
p. 250.8pathetically = in a manner that arouses pity
- That pathetic woman. The fact that harder times were coming was surely the best reason for keeping Rosa employed, but no, they fired her.
p. 261.4 *pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
- 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.
p. 262.9 *pathetic = embarrassingly bad
- I called her pathetic.
p. 264.7pathetic = not adequate in behavior
- She wouldn't tolerate having it given to her by a lonely, pathetic old woman.
p. 287.4pathetic = pitiful (arousing pity)
- Was it the pathetic nature of the boy?
p. 295.7
- 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.
p. 369.1pathetic = not adequate in behavior
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)
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(3)
(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.