PITY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Pity

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/pˈɪti/ Listen

noun

Pity n. (pl. pities)

1.

Piety. (Obs.)

2.

A feeling for the sufferings or distresses of another or others; sympathy with the grief or misery of another; compassion; fellow-feeling; commiseration. "He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord." "He... has no more pity in him than a dog."

3.

A reason or cause of pity, grief, or regret; a thing to be regretted. "The more the pity." "What pity is it That we can die but once to serve our country!" Note: In this sense, sometimes used in the plural, especially in the colloquialism: "It is a thousand pities."

Synonyms: Compassion; mercy; commiseration; condolence; sympathy, fellow-suffering; fellow-feeling. Pity, Sympathy, Compassion. Sympathy is literally fellow-feeling, and therefore requiers a certain degree of equality in situation, circumstances, etc., to its fullest exercise. Compassion is deep tenderness for another under severe or inevitable misfortune. Pity regards its object not only as suffering, but weak, and hence as inferior.

verb

Pity v. t. (past & past part. pitied; pres. part. pitying)

1.

To feel pity or compassion for; to have sympathy with; to compassionate; to commiserate; to have tender feelings toward (any one), awakened by a knowledge of suffering. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him."

2.

To move to pity; used impersonally. (Obs.) "It pitieth them to see her in the dust."

Pity v. i. To be compassionate; to show pity. "I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy."

See images of 'Pity'

Etymology of 'Pity'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Pity" Quotes from Famous Books

... does not learn his Greek play cheats the parent who spends money for his education. A boy who cheats his parent is not very far from robbing or forging upon his neighbour. A man who forges on his neighbour pays the penalty of his crime at the gallows. And it is not such a one that I pity (for he will be deservedly cut off), but his maddened and heart-broken parents, who are driven to a premature grave by his crimes, or, if they live, drag on a wretched and dishonoured old age. Go on, sir, and I warn you that the very ...

— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Horse's Fore-legs, and by crossing of it threw Horse and Rider to the Ground; by which means he was soon slain; and that from this occasion the place obtain'd the name of Cripple-gate, which it retains to this day." It is a pity so quaint a story belongs to the realm of legend, for there is no substantial proof forthcoming of ...

— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw

... your conceit and your mastership. However, I suppose when the time comes I shall have to obey my father. What a pity it is we girls cannot choose our husbands for ourselves! Perhaps the time may come ...

— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... dreamt of the time when, helped by her, her husband should go forward in his career, when, steered under her guidance, Rachel would go along the smiling path to happiness. And now, instead, she was to be to husband and daughter but the constant object of care and solicitude and pity. Yes, pity—that was the worst of it. "An invalid," she repeated to herself, and felt that at last she knew what that word meant that she had heard all her life, that she had applied unconcernedly to one fellow-creature or another without realising all that it means of tragedy, of startled, ...

— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... ever should be choked by frivolity or pride, and frozen by indifference and self-indulgence! Gentle souls spring up in unfavourable soil. Rameses was a strange father for such a daughter. How came this dove in the vulture's cage? Her sweet pity beside his cold craft and cruelty is like the lamb couching by the lion. Note, too, that gentlest pity makes the gentlest brave. She sees the child is a Hebrew. Her quick wit understands why it has been ...

— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com