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Love vs Pity - What's the difference?

love | pity |

In uncountable terms the difference between love and pity

is that love is strong affection while pity is a feeling of sympathy at the misfortune or suffering of someone or something.

In countable terms the difference between love and pity

is that love is the object of one’s romantic feelings; a darling or sweetheart while pity is something regrettable.

In obsolete terms the difference between love and pity

is that love is a thin silk material while pity is piety.

In transitive terms the difference between love and pity

is that love is to lust for while pity is to feel pity for (someone or something).

As a proper noun Love

is {{surname|lang=en}.

As an interjection pity is

short form of what a pity.

love

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) (m), (m), from (etyl) . The closing-of-a-letter sense is presumably a truncation of With love or the like. The verb is from (etyl) (m), (m), from (etyl) .

Noun

  • (label) Strong affection.
  • # An intense feeling of affection and care towards another person.
  • #*
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=8 , passage=The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again; for, even after she had conquered her love for the Celebrity, the mortification of having been jilted by him remained.}}
  • # A deep or abiding liking for something.
  • # A profound and caring attraction towards someone.
  • #* (John Milton) (1608-1674)
  • He on his side / Leaning half-raised, with looks of cordial love / Hung over her enamoured.
  • (countable) The object of one’s romantic feelings; a darling or sweetheart.
  • * (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
  • Open the temple gates unto my love .
  • (colloquial)
  • (euphemistic) A sexual desire; sexual activity.
  • *1986, Ben Elton & al., ":
  • *:—What think you, my lord, of... love ?
  • *:—You mean ‘rumpy-pumpy’.
  • (obsolete) A thin silk material.
  • * 1664 , (Robert Boyle), Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours,
  • Such a kind of transparency, as that of a Sive, a piece of Cyprus, or a Love -Hood.
  • A climbing plant, Clematis vitalba .
  • Synonyms
    * (sense) baby, darling, lover, pet, sweetheart, honey, love bird * (term of address) mate, lover. darling, sweety
    Antonyms
    * (strong affection) hate, hatred, angst; malice, spite * (absence of love) indifference

    Verb

    (lov)
  • To have a strong affection for (someone or something).
  • * 1918 , (Edgar Rice Burroughs), Chapter VI
  • I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her how I loved her, and had taken her hand from the rail and started to draw her toward me when Olson came blundering up on deck with his bedding.
  • * 2013 February 26, and (Nate Ruess), (Just Give Me a Reason) :
  • Just give me a reason, / just a little bit's enough, / just a second we're not broken, just bent / and we can learn to love again.
  • To need, thrive on.
  • (colloquial) To be strongly inclined towards something; an emphatic form of like .
  • To care deeply about, to be dedicated to (someone or something).
  • * John 3:16
  • For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
  • * Matthew: 37-38
  • You shall love' the Lord your God with your whole heart, and your whole mind, and your whole soul; you shall ' love your neighbor as yourself.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-21, author=(Oliver Burkeman)
  • , volume=189, issue=2, page=27, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= The tao of tech , passage=The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about […], or offering services that let you
  • To derive delight from a fact or situation.
  • To lust for.
  • (euphemistic) To have sex with, (perhaps from make love.)
  • Antonyms
    * hate, despise
    Derived terms
    * all's fair in love and war * cupboard love * in love * I love you * fall in love * first love * lady love * love affair * love at first sight * love bird/lovebird * love bite/lovebite * love bomb * love bug * lovebunny * love child * loved-up * love egg * love feast * love game * love grass * love handle * love-hate * love-in * love-in-a-mist * love is blind * love life * lovely * love-making * love match * love nest * love potion * lover * love rat * lovertine * love seat * loveship * love-shyness * lovesick * love song * lovestone * love story * love tap * love toy * love triangle * lovey-dovey * loving kindness * loyal love * make love * unrequited love * no love lost * puppy love * tough love * true love * unconditional love

    See also

    * charity

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) (m), (m), from (etyl) . See also (l).

    Verb

    (lov)
  • To praise; commend.
  • To praise as of value; prize; set a price on.
  • Etymology 3

    From the phrase Neither for love nor for money , meaning "nothing". The previously held belief that it originated from the (etyl) term , due to its shape, is no longer widely accepted.

    Noun

    (-)
  • (racquet sports) Zero, no score.
  • So that’s fifteen-love to Kournikova.
  • * The Field
  • He won the match by three sets to love .
  • * John Betjeman, A Subaltern's Love Song
  • Love -thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy, / The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy, / With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won, / I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.

    Statistics

    *

    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 ----