- 1令人憐憫的、可憐的
Piteous describes a look, a cry, or a scene that shows pain and sadness, and makes you feel sorry for someone. A piteous cry is the sound of someone who is hurting. The word is a little old and : in everyday talk people more often say sad or pitiful. Though actually, pitiful can also mean “so poor or weak it is almost a joke,” and that cool, almost meaning does not sit in piteous. Piteous stays with real pity. You meet it more in stories than in the street.
core核心畫面
組成From Middle English pitous, from Old French piteus, pitus — the same old stream that gave us pity.
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
piteousadj/ˈpɪ.ti.əs/
- 1
Provoking pity, compassion, or sympathy.
- […] 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, […] 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 […]
- 2
obsoleteShowing devotion to God.
- For the Lord kan delyuere piteuouse men fro temptacioun, and kepe wickid men in to the dai of dom to be turmentid;
- 3
obsoleteShowing compassion.
- 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.
- 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,
- 4
obsoleteOf little importance or value.
- […] 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,
- […] 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.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。