pitiable

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English piteable,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman piteable (“compassionate; deserving compassion”) and Middle French pitiable,^[5][6] now French pitoyable.^[5][7] The OED and Merriam-Webster derive the French adjective from the noun pite, later pitie, the source of pity, with -able,^[5][3][8] and Etymonline, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English derive it from the verb piteer (“to pity”).^[4][7][9] The noun goes back to Latin pietās.^[4] The OED explains the early English spellings that resemble pitoyable, a variant recorded in 1485, as following that form.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Full of pity, compassionate: before 1475, in Stephen Scrope's translation of the Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers, in the phrase piteable peple.^[5][2] Dictionary.com dates the word 1425–75,^[10] Etymonline the mid 15th century,^[4] and Merriam-Webster the 15th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Like its French source, the adjective could look in either direction, at the one who feels pity or at the one who deserves it.^[5] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the first half of the 12th century as compassionate, and French had the sense "arousing pity" by the 13th century;^[5][6] English took over both at nearly the same moment, about 1475.^[5][2] The active sense was dead by 1503,^[5] and when Johnson (1755) defined the word he gave only "deserving pity".^[11] The sense of pity shaded into contempt: from 1753, in Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison, the word could mean meagre, inadequate or despicable,^[5] though the Shorter Oxford dates "despicable, contemptible" to the late 18th century.^[7] Its close relatives piteous and pitiful are older in English and are partly synonymous with it.^[5][7]

Timeline

• before 1475 – full of pity, compassionate (obsolete after 1503).^[5][2]
• c. 1475 – arousing or deserving pity, in a translation of Chartier's Quadrilogue.^[5][2]
• 1753 – very small or poor; despicable.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Deserving or arousing pity; lamentable: The stray dog was in a pitiable state.^{[12][3][10][5]}
2. Deserving contemptuous pity; wretchedly poor or contemptible: It was a pitiable excuse for a meal.^{[12][10][5][7]}
3. (obsolete, 1475–1503) Full of pity; compassionate.^[5][2]

Word family

• pitiableness
• pitiably
• unpitiable

Related words

• pity
• piety
• pious
• piteous
• pitiful

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins