pitiful
It's a pitiful episode, though put in perspective by the greater pitifulness of the war.
The pitifulness of his disabilities can only be appreciated by wide reading of his correspondence.
She remembered everything good about him, and began to weep for the pitifulness of his life and death.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Sympathy & compassion
aw
bad/hard/tough luck!idiom
better luck next timeidiom
bleeding heart
cheese
heart-wrenching
heart-wrenchingly
heartrending
pitiful
pitifully
pity
pityingly
poor
relate
sensitivity
sympathetic
sympathize
sympathy
your heart achesidiom
your heart goes out to someoneidiom

Examples of pitifulness

pitifulness
There was a grave pitifulness, like an old woman's, about her mouth, but her shoulders looked very young and slender.
From Project Gutenberg
The clergyman quieted her, somehow; perhaps just by his gentle pitifulness; or else her reverence for him silenced her.
From Project Gutenberg
He had definitely shed the pitifulness of his childhood.
From Project Gutenberg
Vexed by a sense of his own pitifulness.
From Project Gutenberg
But a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath pitifulness.
From Project Gutenberg
You will consider what we have suffered from the pettiness, the pitifulness, the arrogance, and the selfishness of men.
From Project Gutenberg
In the bleakness of winter, the makeshift, curling shingles and the warped walls must have looked their pitifulness.
From Project Gutenberg
The whole of nature has to seeing minds the same pitifulness.
From Project Gutenberg
How she must have laughed at my submission, my blindness, my pitifulness, my inconceivable folly!
From Project Gutenberg
He turned his eyes from the pitifulness of her face.
From Project Gutenberg
The pitifulness of her, sitting there so spent, so white, blurred his vision again with sudden tears.
From Project Gutenberg
His pitifulness has dug deep into my heart.
From Project Gutenberg
To me it is just embodied babyhood, just a little pink, helpless, palpitating bunch of pitifulness.
From Project Gutenberg
She knew just the pitifulness that was in his expression, but she could not raise her eyes to his.
From Project Gutenberg
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.