1. pathetic(s = adj.all) hapless, miserable, misfortunate, piteous, pitiable, pitiful, poor, wretched - deserving or inciting pity; "a hapless victim"; "miserable victims of war"; "the shabby room struck her as extraordinarily pathetic"; "piteous appeals for help"; "pitiable homeless children"; "a pitiful fate"; "Oh, you poor thing"; "his poor distorted limbs"; "a wretched life"
Derived form noun pathos2
2. pathetic(s = adj.all) pitiable, pitiful - inspiring mixed contempt and pity; "their efforts were pathetic"; "pitiable lack of character"; "pitiful exhibition of cowardice"
3. pathetic(s = adj.all) ridiculous, silly - inspiring scornful pity; "how silly an ardent and unsuccessful wooer can be especially if he is getting on in years"
1. Expressing or showing anger; passionate. [1913 Webster]
2. 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, 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)
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?.