adjective
- evoking or deserving pity: a pitiful fate.
- evoking or deserving contempt by smallness, poor quality, etc.: pitiful attempts.
- Archaic. full of pity; compassionate.
adjective
- arousing or deserving pity
- arousing or deserving contempt
- archaic full of pity or compassion
adj.c.1300, “merciful, compassionate” (implied in pitifully), from pity + -ful. Sense of “exciting or deserving pity” is from mid-15c.; that of “mean, wretched, contemptible” is 1580s. Related: Pitifulness.