Pity.
Synonyms:
| commiseration, | condolence, | sympathy, | tenderness. |
| compassion, | mercy, | ||
Pity is a feeling of grief or pain aroused by the weakness, misfortunes, or distresses of others, joined with a desire to help or relieve. Sympathy (feeling or suffering with) implies some degree of equality, kindred, or union; pity is for what is weak or unfortunate, and so far, at least, inferior to ourselves; hence, pity is often resented where sympathy would be welcome. We have sympathy with one in joy or grief, in pleasure or pain, pity only for those in suffering or need; we may have sympathy with the struggles of a giant or the triumphs of a conqueror; we are moved with pity for the captive or the slave. Pity may be only in the mind, but mercy does something for those who are its objects. Compassion, like pity, is exercised only with respect to the suffering or unfortunate, but combines with the tenderness of pity the dignity of sympathy and the active quality of mercy. Commiseration is as tender as compassion, but more remote and hopeless; we have commiseration for sufferers whom we can not reach or can not relieve. Condolence is the expression of sympathy. Compare MERCY.
Antonyms:
| barbarity, | ferocity, | harshness, | pitilessness, | severity, |
| brutality, | hard-heartedness, | inhumanity, | rigor, | sternness, |
| cruelty, | hardness, | mercilessness, | ruthlessness, | truculence. |
Prepositions:
Pity on or upon that which we help or spare; pity for that which we merely contemplate; "have pity upon me, O ye my friends," Job xix, 21; "pity for a horse o'erdriven," Tennyson In Memoriam lxii, st. 1.