Pitiful

How to spell pitiful

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce pitiful

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pitiful mean?

1. adjectiveSo sad or wretched that it arouses compassion or sympathy.
2. adjectiveContemptibly small, poor, or inadequate.

Pitiful in a sentence

• The abandoned dog gave a pitiful whimper from inside the crate.

• The company offered a pitiful raise after three years of record profits.

• The refugees arrived cold and hungry, a pitiful sight after their long crossing.

• Their excuse for missing the deadline was frankly pitiful.

Where does pitiful come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built from the noun 'pity' and the suffix '-ful', which means 'full of'. 'Pity' itself reached English in the 1200s through Old French 'pité', which descended from the Latin 'pietas', meaning 'dutifulness', 'devotion', or 'compassion'. Interestingly, 'pietas' is the very same root that gave us 'piety', so 'pity' and 'piety' are long-lost siblings that split apart on their journey through French. As an adjective, 'pitiful' first meant 'full of pity', that is, compassionate, before the sense flipped in later centuries to describe something that arouses pity, and then weakened further into 'contemptibly small or inadequate'. The spelling trap is the join: the 'y' of 'pity' changes to 'i' before '-ful', and the suffix keeps just one 'l', giving 'pitiful' rather than 'pityful' or 'pitifull'.

How the word is built

• piti- (from pity, compassion)
• -ful (full of)