adverb

• 1In a way that arouses pity, especially by displaying vulnerability or sadness.

  ‘she threw her arms around him and sobbed pathetically’

  More example sentences

  • ‘I pathetically pleaded with my guides to stop’
  • ‘She looked crushed, her lips quivering pathetically.’
  • ‘I sniffed pathetically as an answer.’
  • ‘She lives a pathetically lonely life with no companionship except her cat.’
  • ‘He moans pathetically over his marital problems.’
  • ‘While he tore off bits of fish, his family cried pathetically for a bite.’
  • ‘I whimpered pathetically, then bit my lip and let the lorry go.’
  • ‘A pathetically forlorn figure, he set out to destroy all traces of the religion of his ancestors.’
  • ‘There is something pathetically sad about people who would seek to honor something so dishonorable.’
  • ‘Do you remember those charity infomercials with smiling white adults holding the hands of pathetically malnourished dark-skinned children?’
  • ‘He gives a wonderful portrayal of the tongue-tied, misfit Sam, who is pathetically searching for someone to replace his dead mother.’

• 2informal In a miserably inadequate or ridiculous way.

  More example sentences

  • ‘he argued rather pathetically for an election boycott’
  • ‘a pathetically ill-conceived approach’
  • ‘He attempted to explain their pathetically lame joke between gasps of laughter.’
  • ‘I yank my hand out of his grasp and pathetically punch him in the shoulder.’
  • ‘Men are pathetically unsubtle, aren't they?’
  • ‘The park's administrators dumped its once-impressive wading pool for a sorry bunch of hoses that spray pathetically from time to time.’
  • ‘The sound of my knife tapping is pathetically minute.’
  • ‘He continues his dire warnings of the inordinate amount of pestilence and death poised to descend on our pathetically unprepared continent the second we relax our vigilance.’
  • ‘Their operations are pathetically undercapitalised, undermanned, and haphazard.’
  • ‘He was pathetically indecisive and unable to leverage the most important window they had for a counter-attack.’
  • ‘The fledgling company pathetically traded as low as 50 cents a share.’
  • ‘It seems to me that the schools were built next to each other as a pathetically tentative step towards integration.’