I must really hate myself. It’s pitiful really. But, I will be pitiless in my pitiable attempts to understand the difference in meaning between these four words. Please, please do hear my piteous cries…and bear up under it.
The root word for all this is pity meaning to feel (or cause) sorrow or compassion.
Piteous has become more archaic in a poetic sense, condemning the masses to a piteous death.
Pitiable is more commonly used in place of piteous, besides also meaning small, these days. And it is pitiable how unable we are to go without socializing…sigh…
Pitiful is more negative. Think of our pitiful government leaders unable to compromise for the sake of American citizens and more concerned with their own agendas.
The -less in pitiless is obvious in it being the opposite of compassionate. ‘Twas a pitiless person who could ignore the dog’s suffering.
Word Confusions…
…started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noir for you from either end.
If you found this post on “Piteous vs Pitiable vs Pitiful vs Pitiless” interesting, consider tweeting it to your friends. Subscribe to KD Did It, if you’d like to track this post for future updates.
| Piteous | Pitiable | Pitiful | Pitiless |
|---|---|---|---|
| Credit to: Apple Dictionary.com; Dictionary.com: piteous, pitiable, pitiful; Lexico.com: piteous, pitiable, pitiful, pitiless | |||
Blue Being Piteous by Matthew Dillon is under the CC BY 2.0 license, via Flickr. |
MSU Senani Carrying Relief Items for Flood Victims, 2017, is courtesy of the Mithila Student Union and is under the CC BY 4.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons. — Enduring a flood, being its victim, is a pitiable state. |
Homeless Man by Matthew Woitunski is under the CC BY 3.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons. — It’s pitiful that in a society as rich as ours that we don’t care for our homeless. |
Bombing in Beirut, 29 April 1983, is courtesy of the US Army and is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. — Terrorists are pitiless in their actions. |
| Part of Grammar: | |||
| Adjective | Adjective | Adjective | Adjective |
Deserving or arousing pity
[Archaic] Compassionate |
Deserving or arousing pity
|
Deserving or arousing pity
|
Showing no pity
|
| Examples: | |||
| A piteous cry rang out.
The girl uttered a cry, long, tremulous, heart-rending, piteous. This same mother will also tell you not to cut the tree, for it will bleed real blood during the night and cry out with a piteous wail. The court proved immune to these piteous cries and upheld the sentence, anyway. |
The men were in a pitiable condition.
In either case, the suffering of the person with MPD is equally pitiable and deserving of our understanding, not derision. If some doctors, motivated by pity, help such pitiable individuals to die, do they commit the offense of destroying life or not? When these young people return, despite being richer or better educated or both, they still have no pigs, a condition considered pitiable by the older generation. |
The two children are in a very pitiful state.
It’s pitiful, yet she doesn’t want to be pitied, so what do I do? It implied, moreover, that the strikers were pitiful wretches whose problems should be addressed through social uplift or charity. He looked so pitiful that I felt sorry for him and I agreed. It was a pitiful attempt to impress her. In a pitiful and pathetic attempt to get his party re-elected, he has disgraced your wonderful country. Along the way, you’ve got lots of pitiful attempts at push-back spin from administration officials who won’t give their names. In a pitiful attempt to recover from the picture-posting fiasco, I shall share some interesting information with you. |
He made for a pitiless executioner.
Did their pitiful cries and prayers rise into the night to a God who seemed as deaf and pitiless as their cruel jailers? It was a brutal, vicious, and pitiless attack in which you showed your victim no mercy. I would add a few refinements of my own devising, concessions to our cruel and pitiless modern age. |
| Derivatives: | |||
| Adjective: overpiteous Adverb: piteously, overpiteously Noun: piteousness |
Adjective: unpitiable Adverb: pitiably, unpitiably Noun: pitiableness |
Adjective: self-pitiful Adverb: pitifully, self-pitifully Noun: pitifulness |
Adverb: pitilessly Noun: pitilessness |
| History of the Word: | |||
| Middle English from the Old French piteus, is from the Latin pietas meaning piety, pity. | Late Middle English from the Old French piteable, which is from piteer meaning to pity. | Late Middle English dating back to 1400–50, from pity + -ful. | First recorded in 1375–1425, from the late Middle English piteles (pity + -less). |
C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan…which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them…and we’ll all benefit!
Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions by exploring the index. You may also want to explore Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, and/or the Properly Punctuated.
Resources for Piteous vs Pitiable vs Pitiful vs Pitiless
“pitiable / pitiful / piteous / pitiless.” Choose Your Words. Vocabulary.com. n.d. Web. 9 August 2020. <https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/pitiable-pitiful-piteous-pitiless/>
Pinterest Photo Credits:
A Union Soldier Who Survived, Andersonville Prison, Georgia, May 1865, by an unknown author is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
