Wretched vs Pity - What's the difference?
wretched | pity |
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
Worthless; paltry; very poor or mean; miserable.
* {{quote-book, year=1864, author=(Fyodor Dostoyevsky), title=Notes from Underground, chapter=1
*, chapter=17
, title= * , Episode 16
* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=April 11, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC Sport
, title= (obsolete) Hatefully contemptible; despicable; wicked.
(uncountable) A feeling of sympathy at the misfortune or suffering of someone or something.
* Bible, Proverbs xix. 17
* Shakespeare
*, Folio Society, 2006, p.5:
(countable) Something regrettable.
* Laurence Sterne
* Addison
(obsolete) piety
To feel pity for (someone or something).
* Bible, Psalms ciii. 13
* 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , IV.11:
* Book of Common Prayer
Short form of what a pity.
In obsolete|lang=en terms the difference between wretched and pity
is that wretched is (obsolete) hatefully contemptible; despicable; wicked while pity is (obsolete) piety.As an adjective wretched
is very miserable; sunk in, or accompanied by, deep affliction or distress, as from want, anxiety, or grief; calamitous; woeful; very afflicting.As a noun pity is
(uncountable) a feeling of sympathy at the misfortune or suffering of someone or something.As a verb pity is
to feel pity for (someone or something).As an interjection pity is
short form of what a pity.wretched
English
(Webster 1913)Adjective
(en-adj)citation, passage=As for me, I felt wretched and helpless, in the darkness, surrounded with angry waves, whose noise deafened me.}}
citation, passage=My room is a wretched , horrid one in the outskirts of the town.}}
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.}}
- 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,.
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. }}
Usage notes
* Nouns to which "wretched" is often applied: woman, state, life, condition, creature, man, excess, person, place, world, being, situation, weather, slave, animal, city, village, health, house, town.Quotations
* To what wretched state reserved! Milton * Wretched ungratefulness . Sir Philip Sidney * Wrechet World King LearSynonyms
* See alsoDerived terms
* wretchednessExternal links
* *pity
English
Alternative forms
* pitty (obsolete)Noun
- He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord.
- Hehas no more pity in him than a dog.
- The most usuall way to appease those minds we have offendedis, by submission to move them to commiseration and pitty .
- It's a pity you're feeling unwell because there's a party on tonight.
- It was a thousand pities .
- What pity is it / That we can die but once to serve our country!
- (Wyclif)
Synonyms
* (mercy) ruth * (something regrettable) shameVerb
(en-verb)- Like as a father pitieth' his children, so the Lord ' pitieth them that fear him.
- She lenger yet is like captiv'd to bee; / That even to thinke thereof it inly pitties mee.
- It pitieth them to see her in the dust.