pathetic
Pronunciation
- IPA: /pəˈθɛtɪk/[1]
Etymology
It is borrowed from Middle French pathétique (“moving, stirring”),[2][3][4] from Late Latin patheticus, from Greek παθητικός (pathētikós, “sensitive, capable of feeling”),[3][2] from pathētós, liable to suffer, from the stem of páskhein, to suffer (see pathos),[2][3] from PIE Proto-Indo-European *kwent(h)- (“to suffer”).[3]
Earliest recorded meaning
Affecting the emotions, moving: pathetical 1573,[2] pathetique 1598, in Marston's The Scourge of Villainy.[2][5]
Semantic evolution
The broad sense, moving or stirring, is now obsolete.[3][5] Passionate, earnest, is an obsolete sense of 1648,[5] and of the passions of the mind from 1649.[5] Both the spelling pathetic and the meaning arousing pity are first recorded in 1737, in Pope.[2][5][3] The pathetic fallacy, the attribution of human feelings to nature, was first used by Ruskin in 1856.[3] The colloquial sense, so miserable or inadequate as to be ridiculous, is attested by 1937.[3][6]
Timeline
- 1573 – pathetical.[2]
- 1598 – moving (obsolete).[2]
- 1737 – arousing pity.[2]
- 1856 – pathetic fallacy.[3]
- 1937 – contemptibly inadequate.[3]
Modern meaning
Adjective
- Arousing pity, sympathy or sorrow.
- Pitifully inadequate.
- (British, informal) Contemptibly worthless or uninteresting.
Word family
- pathetically
- pathetical
- patheticalness
- hyperpathetic
- pathetic fallacy
Related words
References
- ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
- ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
- ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins