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Piteous vs Miserable - What's the difference?

piteous | miserable | Synonyms |

In obsolete terms the difference between piteous and miserable

is that piteous is paltry; mean; pitiful while miserable is avaricious; niggardly; miserly.

As adjectives the difference between piteous and miserable

is that piteous is pitiful; evincing pity, compassion, or sympathy while miserable is in a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.

piteous

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • pitiful; evincing pity, compassion, or sympathy.
  • * Shakespeare
  • The most piteous tale of Lear.
  • (obsolete) pious; devout
  • * Wyclif
  • The Lord can deliver piteous men from temptation.
  • (obsolete) compassionate; tender
  • * Alexander Pope
  • [She was] piteous of his case.
  • (obsolete) paltry; mean; pitiful
  • (Milton)

    Synonyms

    * pathetic

    Derived terms

    * piteously

    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