pathetic

pathetic
    adj 1: deserving or inciting pity; "a hapless victim";
           "miserable victims of war"; "the shabby room struck her
           as extraordinarily pathetic"- Galsworthy; "piteous
           appeals for help"; "pitiable homeless children"; "a
           pitiful fate"; "Oh, you poor thing"; "his poor distorted
           limbs"; "a wretched life" [syn: {hapless}, {miserable},
           {misfortunate}, {pathetic}, {piteous}, {pitiable},
           {pitiful}, {poor}, {wretched}]
    2: inspiring mixed contempt and pity; "their efforts were
       pathetic"; "pitiable lack of character"; "pitiful exhibition
       of cowardice" [syn: {pathetic}, {pitiable}, {pitiful}]
    3: inspiring scornful pity; "how silly an ardent and
       unsuccessful wooer can be especially if he is getting on in
       years"- Dashiell Hammett [syn: {pathetic}, {ridiculous},
       {silly}]
    

Pathetic \Pa*thet"ic\ (p[.a]*th[e^]t"[i^]k), a. [L. patheticus,
   Gr. paqhtiko`s, fr. paqei^n, pa`schein, to suffer: cf. F.
   path['e]tique. See {Pathos}.]
   1. Expressing or showing anger; passionate. [Obs.]
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Affecting or moving the tender emotions, esp. pity or
      grief; full of pathos; as, a pathetic song or story.
      "Pathetic action." --Macaulay.
      [1913 Webster]

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

87 Moby Thesaurus words for "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