pathetic

• POS: Adjective, Noun Plural
• HYPHEN: pa=thet=ic

CIDE DICTIONARY

pathetic, a. [L. patheticus, Gr. paqhtiko`s, fr. paqei^n, pa`schein, to suffer: cf. F. pathétique. See Pathos.].

•  Expressing or showing anger; passionate.  [1913 Webster]
•  Affecting or moving the tender emotions, esp. pity or grief; full of pathos; as, a pathetic song or story.  Macaulay.  [1913 Webster]

  "No theory of the passions can teach a man to be pathetic."  [1913 Webster]

Pathetic muscle (Anat.), the superior oblique muscle of the eye. -- Pathetic nerve (Anat.), the fourth cranial, or trochlear, nerve, which supplies the superior oblique, or pathetic, muscle of the eye. -- The pathetic, a style or manner adapted to arouse the tender emotions.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

pathetic, adj.
1 arousing pity or sadness or contempt.
2 Brit. colloq. miserably inadequate.
3 archaic of the emotions.

Idiom

pathetic fallacy the attribution of human feelings and responses to inanimate things, esp. in art and literature.

Derivative

pathetically adv.

Etymology

F path{eacute}tique f. LL patheticus f. Gk pathetikos (as PATHOS)

THESAURUS

pathetic

affecting, affective, afflictive, beggarly, beneath contempt, bitter, bleak, cheap, cheerless, cheesy, comfortless, common, contemptible, crummy, deplorable, depressing, depressive, despicable, discomforting, dismal, dismaying, distressful, distressing, doleful, dolorific, dolorogenic, dolorous, dreary, emotional, emotive, feeble, gaudy, gimcracky, grievous, heartrending, inadequate, joyless, lamentable, mean, measly, meretricious, miserable, mournful, moving, painful, paltry, petty, piddling, piteous, pitiable, pitiful, plaintive, poignant, poor, puny, regrettable, rubbishy, rueful, sad, saddening, scrubby, scruffy, scummy, scurvy, scuzzy, shabby, sharp, shoddy, sore, sorrowful, sorry, stirring, touching, tragic, trashy, trumpery, two-for-a-cent, two-for-a-penny, twopenny, twopenny-halfpenny, uncomfortable, valueless, vile, woebegone, woeful, worthless, wretched

ROGET THESAURUS

pathetic

Painfulness

N painfulness, trouble, care, trial, affliction, infliction, blow, stroke, burden, load, curse, bitter pill, bitter draught, waters of bitterness, annoyance, grievance, nuisance, vexation, mortification, sickener, bore, bother, pother, hot water, sea of troubles, hornet's nest, plague, pest, cancer, ulcer, sting, thorn, canker, scorpion, dagger, scourge, carking care, canker worm of care, mishap, misfortune, desagrement, esclandre, rub, source of irritation, source of annoyance, wound, open sore, sore subject, skeleton in the closet, thorn in the flesh, thorn in one's side, where the shoe pinches, gall and wormwood, sorry sight, heavy news, provocation, affront, head and front of one's offending, infestation, molestation, malignity, causing pain, hurting, hurtful, painful, dolorific, dolorous, unpleasant, unpleasing, displeasing, disagreeable, unpalatable, bitter, distasteful, uninviting, unwelcome, undesirable, undesired, obnoxious, unacceptable, unpopular, thankless, unsatisfactory, untoward, unlucky, uncomfortable, distressing, afflicting, afflictive, joyless, cheerless, comfortless, dismal, disheartening, depressing, depressive, dreary, melancholy, grievous, piteous, woeful, rueful, mournful, deplorable, pitiable, lamentable, sad, affecting, touching, pathetic, irritating, provoking, stinging, annoying, aggravating, mortifying, galling, unaccommodating, invidious, vexatious, troublesome, tiresome, irksome, wearisome, plaguing, plaguy, awkward, importunate, teasing, pestering, bothering, harassing, worrying, tormenting, carking, intolerable, insufferable, insupportable, unbearable, unendurable, past bearing, not to be borne, not to be endured, more than flesh and blood can bear, enough to drive one mad, enough to provoke a saint, enough to make a parson swear, enough to gag a maggot, shocking, terrific, grim, appalling, crushing, dreadful, fearful, frightful, thrilling, tremendous, dire, heart-breaking, heart-rending, heart-wounding, heart-corroding, heart-sickening, harrowing, rending, odious, hateful, execrable, repulsive, repellent, abhorrent, horrid, horrible, horrific, horrifying, offensive, nauseous, nauseating, disgusting, sickening, revolting, nasty, loathsome, loathful, fulsome, vile, hideous, sharp, acute, sore, severe, grave, hard, harsh, cruel, biting, caustic, cutting, corroding, consuming, racking, excruciating, searching, grinding, grating, agonizing, envenomed, catheretic, pyrotic, ruinous, disastrous, calamitous, tragical, desolating, withering, burdensome, onerous, oppressive, cumbrous, cumbersome, painfully, with pain, deuced, Int, hinc illae lachrymae!, surgit amari aliquid, the place being too hot to hold one, the iron entering into the soul, he jests at scars that never felt a wound, I must be cruel only to be kind, what deep wounds ever closed without a scar?.