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Miserable vs Pitiful - What's the difference?

miserable | pitiful |

Pitiful is a synonym of miserable.



As adjectives the difference between miserable and pitiful

is that miserable is in a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor while pitiful is feeling pity; merciful.

miserable

English

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • In a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.
  • *
  • *:Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.
  • *, chapter=7
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St.?Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London.}}
  • * (George Bernard Shaw) (1856–1950)
  • *:The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure is occupation.
  • Very bad (at something); unskilled, incompetent.
  • :
  • Wretched; worthless; mean.
  • :
  • (lb) Causing unhappiness or misery.
  • *(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
  • *:What's more miserable than discontent?
  • (lb) Avaricious; niggardly; miserly.
  • :(Hooker)
  • Usage notes

    * Nouns to which "miserable" is often applied: life, condition, state, situation, day, time, creature, person, child, failure, place, world, season, year, week, experience, feeling, work, town, city, wage, job, case, excuse, dog.

    Synonyms

    * See also * See also

    Derived terms

    * miserablism * miserabilism * miserablist * miserabilist

    pitiful

    English

    Alternative forms

    * pitifull (archaic)

    Adjective

    (pitifuller)
  • Feeling pity; merciful.
  • * 1851 , Herman Melville, Moby-Dick :
  • Straightway, he now goes on to make a full confession; whereupon the mariners became more and more appalled, but still are pitiful .
  • So appalling or sad that one feels or should feel sorry for it; eliciting pity.
  • Scotland has a pitiful climate.
  • Very small (of an amount or number).
  • A pitiful number of students bothered to turn up.

    Synonyms

    * See also