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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pitifully

Pitiful \Pit"i*ful\, a.

  1. Full of pity; tender-hearted; compassionate; kind; merciful; sympathetic.

    The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
    --James v. 11.

  2. Piteous; lamentable; eliciting compassion.

    A thing, indeed, very pitiful and horrible.
    --Spenser.

  3. To be pitied for littleness or meanness; miserable; paltry; contemptible; despicable.

    That's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.
    --Shak.

    Syn: Despicable; mean; paltry. See Contemptible. [1913 Webster] -- Pit"i*ful*ly, adv. -- Pit"i*ful*ness, n.

Wiktionary
pitifully

adv. In a pitiful manner.

WordNet
pitifully

adv. to a pitiful degree; "wages were pitifully low, particularly the wages of women"

Usage examples of "pitifully".

He drummed his fingers on the counter while he waited for the pitifully slow barista to get to grips with his technology and assemble the drink.

As he goes about his methodical preparations, reconnoitering the pitifully inadequate accommodations of his shabby hotel, Ludvik is intensely conscious of the parodistic quality of all his moves and gestures.

In her pitifully plain taffeta, she was overwhelmed by the scallops, poufing, cording, piping, fringing, passementerie, and tassels that ornamented their sophisticated gowns.

Sulanda was a small collection of what the Gywannish had managed to grab before they fled: some trinkets, a bag of meal and a pitifully small pile of other provisions, a pulser, and a number of containers of water.

Much politicking, reallocation of scant resources, then, this pitifully inadequate mission.

This excessive waddage of plot culminates with Duddits pitifully tottering into battle clutching a stuffed Scooby Doo doll and a Scooby Doo lunchbox full of cancer medication, a battle whose outcome hinges upon the fact that aliens capable of controlling human minds, biting people in half, and building a spaceship the size of Portland seem baffled by the problem presented by opening a manhole cover with a crowbar.

He saw a calf, hit in error, trying to tear the arrow from its own flank and squealing pitifully as the barbs clung stubbornly in the flesh.

He babbled like a child, pitifully pleased that Peterson stood over him no longer.

Of course the colonel started off at once, and when he caught sight of the hut he noticed that the goats were unmilked and bleating pitifully round the door.

To the Daily Universal Register it had been a notably cool reception, while the Morning and Daily Advertiser described Adams as so pitifully embarrassed as to be tongue-tied.

From that vantage point, he saw a pitifully overweight man, the flesh hanging sad inches over his beltline, more than just pudgy, shadowing into obesity, promising heart disease and kidney weakness, and all of the other flesh failures that obesity brought into existence.

Waxel ordered the rope cut, but the Chukchee interpreter called out pitifully to be saved.

He peered critically at himself in the mirror and made small jabs at his coiffure with the comb, which seemed pitifully inadequate to the task.

I The neatly spaced ruins with their pitifully blackened gardens and skeleton trees continued for a considerable distance, eventually giving way to shrub-lined fields dotted with tall, I dome-capped structures-some connected by fantastic lacelike webs shimmering in the afternoon sun.

That English line looked pitifully small, perhaps because its men- at-arms were on foot and so took up much less room than mounted knights, yet Sir Guillaume grudgingly acknowledged that the Eng- lish King had chosen his position well.