Arousing sorrow and compassion

Usage examples of piteous.

This Maximus, that saw this thing betide, With piteous teares told it anon right, That he their soules saw to heaven glide With angels, full of clearness and of light Andt with his word converted many a wight.

At the near end, the curtain abruptly bulged then parted as a minotaur, cloaked in flame, crashed through the blazing wall and howled in piteous agony as it plummeted into the sea below.

I shrieked, I screamed, and the amphitheatre of rocks echoed and re-echoed my cries, and all the time the head of the elasmosaurus raised aloft to the full height of its neck, swayed about unsteadily, and its mouth silently struggled and twisted, as if in an attempt to form words, while its eyes looked at me now with wild fear and now with piteous intreaty.

He had read descriptions of streets slippery with blood, soldiers soaked in red from head to foot, women and children eviscerated despite their piteous pleas.

As the full meaning of the scene dawned upon her she started to her feet, looking wonderfully beautiful amongst those dusky forms, and extending her hands to me began to cry in the most piteous way.

As I struggled to my feet the brave beast raised her head and looked at me with piteous bloodshot eyes, and then her head dropped with a groan and she was dead.

So saying he cast a piteous glance at Marcoline, and we had to hold our sides to prevent ourselves laughing.

The Laureate turned upon him a bewildered, piteous face, white with an intensity of speechless anguish.

I glanced a piteous appeal to authority, while old Leggett, still standing by, crumpled his shaven upper lip into a professional sneer that I did not like.

What more could plead the wryness of the time Than such unstudied piteous pantomimes!

She had lain in my arms until then, with upturned face and piteous, frightened eyes - like a bird that feels itself within the toils of a snake, yet whose horror is blent with a certain fascination.

But as more arrows whizzed among them, Torquil was obliged to make a precipitous dismount as his valiant little rouncy went down with a piteous squeal, a feathered shaft deep in its chest and blood spraying from its nostrils.

The wistful, piteous way in which the poor man asked her to promise suggested that too many promises made to Camo, were conveniently forgotten.

Diogenes Laertius also relates of him, that one day meeting a man who was cruelly beating a dog, the Samian sage instantly detected in the piteous howls of the poor beast the cries of a dear friend of his long since deceased, and earnestly and successfully interceded for his rescue.

In this piteous condition they were embarked in an open boat for Muxadavad, the capital of Bengal, and underwent such cruel treatment and misery in their passage, as would shock the humane reader should he peruse the particulars.