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Pity vs Indulgence - What's the difference?

pity | indulgence | Related terms |

In transitive terms the difference between pity and indulgence

is that pity is to feel pity for (someone or something) while indulgence is (Roman Catholic Church) to provide with an indulgence.

As an interjection pity

is short form of what a pity.

pity

English

Alternative forms

* pitty (obsolete)

Noun

  • (uncountable) A feeling of sympathy at the misfortune or suffering of someone or something.
  • * Bible, Proverbs xix. 17
  • He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Hehas no more pity in him than a dog.
  • *, Folio Society, 2006, p.5:
  • The most usuall way to appease those minds we have offendedis, by submission to move them to commiseration and pitty .
  • (countable) Something regrettable.
  • It's a pity you're feeling unwell because there's a party on tonight.
  • * Laurence Sterne
  • It was a thousand pities .
  • * Addison
  • What pity is it / That we can die but once to serve our country!
  • (obsolete) piety
  • (Wyclif)

    Synonyms

    * (mercy) ruth * (something regrettable) shame

    Verb

    (en-verb)
  • To feel pity for (someone or something).
  • * Bible, Psalms ciii. 13
  • Like as a father pitieth' his children, so the Lord ' pitieth them that fear him.
  • * 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , IV.11:
  • She lenger yet is like captiv'd to bee; / That even to thinke thereof it inly pitties mee.
  • * Book of Common Prayer
  • It pitieth them to see her in the dust.

    Interjection

  • Short form of what a pity.
  • Synonyms

    * shame, what a pity, what a shame

    Derived terms

    * piteous * pitiable * pitiful * self-pity * what a pity ----

    indulgence

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • the act of indulging
  • * Hammond
  • They err, that through indulgence to others, or fondness to any sin in themselves, substitute for repentance anything less.
  • tolerance
  • catering to someone's every desire
  • something in which someone indulges
  • An indulgent act; favour granted; gratification.
  • * Rogers
  • If all these gracious indulgences are without any effect on us, we must perish in our own folly.
  • (Roman Catholicism) A pardon or release from the expectation of punishment in purgatory, after the sinner has been granted absolution.
  • * 2009 , (Diarmaid MacCulloch), A History of Christianity , Penguin 2010, p. 555:
  • To understand how indulgences were intended to work depends on linking together a number of assumptions about sin and the afterlife, each of which individually makes considerable sense.

    Verb

    (indulgenc)
  • (Roman Catholic Church ) to provide with an indulgence