Pithy vs Pathetic - What's the difference?
pithy | pathetic |
Concise and meaningful.
* 1825 , ,
* 1873 April 25, (editor), ''The Chemical News ,
* 1876 , ,
Of, like, or abounding in pith.
* 1863 , ,
* 1910 , , Suggestions and Reminders I: For the North, April,
* 1911 , ,
Arousing pity, sympathy, or compassion.
Arousing scornful pity or contempt, often due to miserable inadequacy.
* {{quote-video, year=2005, title=
, passage=Well you'd better think of something because middle-aged tramps aren't cute, they're pathetic .}}
(obsolete) Expressing or showing anger; passionate.
As adjectives the difference between pithy and pathetic
is that pithy is concise and meaningful while pathetic is arousing pity, sympathy, or compassion.pithy
English
Adjective
(er)- Mr. Lamb, on the contrary, being "native to the manner here," though he too has borrowed from previous sources, instead of availing himself of the most popular and admired, has groped out his way, and made his most successful researches among the more obscure and intricate, though certainly not the least pithy or pleasant of our writers.
- The following passage, which is exquisitely pithy and exquisitely modest, winds up the description:- "In this apparatus there is nothing new but its simplicity and thorough trustworthiness."
- IT was a pithy' saying that of Lorenzo de' Medici, and true as ' pithy , that we are enjoined to forgive our enemies, but nowhere are we told that we should forgive our friends.
- Must we know the torrid zone only through travelled bananas, plucked too soon and pithy ? or by bottled anacondas? or by the tarry-flavored slang of forecastle-bred paroquets?
- Parsnip .—Dig the roots before they grow and become soft and pithy .
- To summarize the characters of a true mushroom - it grows only in pastures; it is of small size, dry, and with unchangeable flesh; the cap has a frill; the gills are free from the stem, the spores brown-black or deep purple-black in colour, and the stem solid or slightly pithy .
Synonyms
* (brief and to the point) terse, concise, laconic, succinctpathetic
English
Alternative forms
* pathetick (archaic) * patheticke (obsolete) * pathetique (obsolete)Adjective
(en adjective)- The old man’s pathetic pleas for forgiveness stirred the young man’s heart.
- You can't even run two miles? That’s pathetic .
- You're almost 26 years old and you still can't hold a real job? That's pathetic .