pitiful

Word family

pit·i·ful /ˈpɪtɪfəl/ adjectiveadj

1 SAD/UNHAPPYsomeone who is pitiful looks or sounds so sad and unfortunate that you feel very sorry for them 令人同情的，可怜的 → pity

The refugees were a pitiful sight.

难民们看上去真可怜。

2 GOOD ENOUGHa pitiful amount is very small 〔数量〕非常少的

The fee was pitiful – only about £60.

费用相当少——只有60英镑左右。

3 very bad in quality 〔质量〕非常差的 SYN awful

His performance was pitiful – five goals flew past him.

他的表现很差劲，丢了五个球。

—pitifully adverbadv

The dog was pitifully thin.

那条狗瘦得可怜。

Examples from the Corpus

pitiful• Stu's bass playing is just pitiful.• Serious inroads had now been made into my pitiful cash reserves and tomorrow I would be penniless.• The horses were in a pitiful condition, thin and covered with sores.• I refer, or course, to the pitiful coverage of the Five Nations Championship provided by the corporation.• the pitiful cries of an injured puppy• John looked pitiful, his whole body weak with exhaustion.• Margret looked so pitiful, I had to help her.• How fragile I was, and how pitiful my fears seem now.• My Songhai was pitiful, my Mandarin worse.• The velocity, the sheer power and the technology of the rocket perhaps makes all the more pitiful our meagre destiny.• She would not think of the pitiful remains in the corner.• But what pitiful towns they were.• Did unemployment, economic depression and the General Strike reduce trade unionism to a pitiful weakness?

pitiful sight• She was a pitiful sight, still lying where she had fallen, too terrified to move an inch.

Chinese

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