Word.ws English Dictionary

pittiful

pittiful is the obsolete form of pitiful.

Meaning of pitiful

Adjective

pitiful (comparative pitifuller, superlative pitifullest)

  1. So appalling or sad that one feels or should feel sorry for it; eliciting pity.
    • Scotland has a pitiful climate.
  2. Eliciting contempt.
  3. Of an amount or number: very small.
    • A pitiful number of students bothered to turn up.
    Synonyms:
    few, meager, paltry, scant, scanty, thin
  4. (archaic) Feeling pity; merciful.
    • Some ſay that Rauens foſter forlorne children, / The vvhilſt their ovvne birds famiſh in their neſts: / Oh be to me though thy hard hart ſay no, / Nothing ſo kinde but ſomething pittifull.c. 1588–1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Most Lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus: […] (First Quarto), London: […] Iohn Danter, and are to be sold by Edward White & Thomas...

See all 5 meanings of pitiful

Forms of pittiful

comparativemore pittiful
superlativemost pittiful

Questions about pittiful

What is pittiful the obsolete form of?
Pittiful is the obsolete form of pitiful.

Words near pittiful in the dictionary

  1. pitters
  2. pittid
  3. pittids
  4. pittie
  5. pitties
  6. pittiful
  7. pitting
  8. pitting against
  9. pitting corrosion
  10. pitting one's wits
  11. pitting out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pittiful (page history and authors); pitiful (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “pittiful.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pittiful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.