Adjective

(er)

With little or no possessions or money.

:

Of low quality.

:

*, chapter=10

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.}}

To be pitied.

:

*

*: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.

*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=15 citation , passage=Mr. Campion sighed. ‘Poor man,’ he said. ‘He sees his great sacrifices rejected by the gods, and so, no doubt, all the Misses Eumenides let loose again to plague him.’}}

Deficient in a specified way.

:

Inadequate, insufficient.

:

*(w) (1600-1666)

*:That I have wronged no man will be a poor plea or apology at the last day.

Free from self-assertion; not proud or arrogant; meek.

*(Bible), (w) v.3

*:Blessed are the poor in spirit.

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.