different between piteous vs miserable

English

Etymology

From Middle English pitous, from Old French piteus, pitus.

Pronunciation

Adjective

piteous (comparative more piteous, superlative most piteous)

1. Provoking pity, compassion, or sympathy.

   Synonyms: heartbreaking, heartrending, lamentable, pathetic, pitiful

   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act V, Scene 3,^[1]

     […] with his strong arms

     He fastened on my neck, and bellowed out

     As he’d burst heaven; threw him on my father;

     Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him

     That ever ear receiv’d;

   • 1782, Frances Burney, Cecilia, London: T. Payne & Son and T. Cadell, Volume 2, Book 3, Chapter 4, p. 51,^[2]

     […] my strength, madam, is almost all gone away, and when I do any hard work, it’s quite a piteous sight to see me, for I am all in a tremble after it, just as if I had an ague […]

   • 1931, Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth, New York: Modern Library, 1944, Chapter 11, pp. 80-81,^[3]

     “ […] you go out to beg, first smearing yourself with mud and filth to make yourselves as piteous as you can.”

2. (obsolete) Showing devotion to God.

   Synonyms: devout, pious

   • c. 1390s, John Wycliffe (translator), Wycliffe’s Bible, 2 Peter 2.9,^[4]

     For the Lord kan delyuere piteuouse men fro temptacioun, and kepe wickid men in to the dai of dom to be turmentid;

3. (obsolete) Showing compassion.

   Synonyms: compassionate, tender

   • c. 1595, William Shakespeare, Richard II, Act V, Scene 3,^[5]

     Thine eye begins to speak; set thy tongue there;

     Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear;

     That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,

     Pity may move thee ‘pardon’ to rehearse.

   • 1634, John Milton, Comus, London: Humphrey Robinson, 1637, p. 29,^[6]

     The water Nymphs that in the bottome playd

     Held up their pearled wrists and tooke her in,

     Bearing her straite to aged Nereus hall

     Who piteous of her woes rea[r’]d her lanke head,

     And gave her to his daughters to imbathe

     In nectar’d lavers strewd with asphodil,

   • 1728, Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, London: A. Dodd, Book 2, p. 21,^[7]

     With that the Goddess (piteous of his case,

     Yet smiling at his ruful length of face)

     Gives him a cov’ring,

   • 1783, William Blake, “An Imitation of Spenser” in Poetical Sketches, London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 1868, p. 37,^[8]

     Or have they soft piteous eyes beheld

     The weary wanderer thro’ the desert rove?

     Or does th’ afflicted man thy heavenly bosom move?

4. (obsolete) Of little importance or value.

   Synonyms: miserable, paltry, pathetic, mean, pitiful

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 9, lines 1030-1034,^[9]

     […] calling to minde with heed

     Part of our Sentence, that thy Seed shall bruise

     The Serpents head; piteous amends, unless

     Be meant, whom I conjecture, our grand Foe

     Satan,

   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, London: W. Taylor, pp. 158-159,^[10]

     […] my Business was now to try if I could not make Jackets out of the great Watch-Coats which I had by me, and with such other Materials as I had, so I set to Work a Taylering, or rather indeed a Botching, for I made most piteous Work of it.

Related terms

• dispiteous
• impiteous
• piteously
• pitiable
• pitiful
• pitisome

Translations

Anagrams

• poustie

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French miserable, from Old French, from Latin miserabilis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?m?z(?)??b?l/

Adjective

miserable (comparative miserabler or more miserable, superlative miserablest or most miserable)

1. In a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.

   • Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.
2. Very bad (at something); unskilled, incompetent; hopeless.

3. Wretched; worthless; mean; contemptible.

4. (obsolete) Causing unhappiness or misery.
   • c. 1596–1599, William Shakespeare The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, Act III, scene i:

     For what's more miserable than discontent?

5. (obsolete) Avaricious; niggardly; miserly.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Hooker to this entry?)

Usage notes

• Nouns to which "miserable" is often applied: life, condition, state, situation, day, time, creature, person, child, failure, place, world, season, year, week, experience, feeling, work, town, city, wage, job, case, excuse, dog.

Synonyms

• (in a state of misery): See Thesaurus:sad or Thesaurus:lamentable
• (very bad (at)): See Thesaurus:unskilled
• (wretched): See Thesaurus:despicable or Thesaurus:insignificant
• (causing unhappiness): See Thesaurus:lamentable
• (miserly): See Thesaurus:stingy or Thesaurus:greedy

Derived terms

Related terms

• miser
• misery

Translations

Noun

miserable (plural miserables)

1. A miserable person; a wretch.
   • 1838, The Foreign Quarterly Review (volume 21, page 181)

     Dona Carmen repaired to the balcony to chat and jest with, and at, these miserables, who stopped before the door to rest in their progress. All pretended poverty while literally groaning under the weight of their riches.

   • 2003, Richard C. Trexler, Reliving Golgotha: The Passion Play of Iztapalapa (pages 46-47)

     The charge that those who played Jesus in these representations were treated badly by the plays' Jews and Romans left one commissioner cold: in his view, these miserables were beaten much less severely by the players than they were by their actual lords or curacas.

2. (informal, in the plural, with definite article) A state of misery or melancholy.
   • 1984, Barbara Wernecke Durkin, Oh, You Dundalk Girls, Can't You Dance the Polka? (page 10)

     By 3:00 P.M. both DeeDee and Sandra's pants were thoroughly soaked, and this unhappy circumstance gave DeeDee a bad case of the miserables.

Anagrams

• marbelise, marbleise

Catalan

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin miser?bilis.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central) IPA^(key): /mi.z???a.bl?/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /mi.ze??a.ble/

Adjective

miserable (masculine and feminine plural miserables)

1. miserable

Spanish

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin miser?bilis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mise??able/, [mi.se??a.??le]

Adjective

miserable (plural miserables)

1. miserable
2. poor
3. greedy, stingy

Related terms

• mísero
• miseria