Adjective

(en adjective)

Causing great sadness or suffering.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April

, author=(Jan Sapp) , title=Race Finished , volume=100, issue=2, page=164 , magazine=(American Scientist) citation , passage=Few concepts are as emotionally charged as that of race. The word conjures up a mixture of associations—culture, ethnicity, genetics, subjugation, exclusion and persecution. But is the tragic history of efforts to define groups of people by race really a matter of the misuse of science, the abuse of a valid biological concept?}}

Relating to tragedy in a literary work.

(in tabloid newspapers) Involved in a tragedy.

* 2008', ''Search for '''tragic Madeleine McCann over'' (in ''The Daily Telegraph of Australia, 14 February 2008) [http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/search-for-maddie-over/story-e6freuy9-1111115550129]

* 2012', Gary Meneely, ''Keano’s tribute to '''tragic James'' (in ''The Irish Sun , 25 June 2012) [http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/irishsun/irishsunnews/4392499/Keanos-tribute-to-tragic-James.html]

Adjective

(en-adj)

Very miserable; sunk in, or accompanied by, deep affliction or distress, as from want, anxiety, or grief; calamitous; woeful; very afflicting.

* {{quote-book, year=1918, author=(w)

, title=Creatures That Once Were Men, and other stories, chapter=4 citation , passage=As for me, I felt wretched and helpless, in the darkness, surrounded with angry waves, whose noise deafened me.}}

Worthless; paltry; very poor or mean; miserable.

* {{quote-book, year=1864, author=(Fyodor Dostoyevsky), title=Notes from Underground, chapter=1

citation , passage=My room is a wretched , horrid one in the outskirts of the town.}}

*, chapter=17

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything.}}

* , Episode 16

All those wretched quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up bad blood, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind, erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag,.

* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=April 11, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC Sport

, title= Liverpool 3-0 Man City , passage=Mario Balotelli replaced Tevez but his contribution was so negligible that he suffered the indignity of being substituted himself as time ran out, a development that encapsulated a wretched 90 minutes for City and boss Roberto Mancini. }}

(obsolete) Hatefully contemptible; despicable; wicked.