pathetically
Americanadverb
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“I think it was always pathetically related to wanting to be, you know, married with children and almost like forcing people into these relationships,” Woodnick said “She was trying to force something.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026
That’s how I felt — pathetically so — even as far as my relationship with Saul Zaentz and the horrible contract.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 3, 2025
This applies at the other end of the demographic scale as well: Americans have a pathetically low life expectancy for a developed country.
From Salon ● Apr. 5, 2025
O’Brien argued that the nation’s labor laws were pathetically weak.
From Slate ● Jul. 16, 2024
Mary Fernandez started a photo album for me containing the pathetically few pictures I had managed to accumulate over the past nine years.
From "Three Little Words: A Memoir" by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
