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.
In opposition to the efficient-market hypothesis, which holds that stock prices reflect all available information, Haugen argued that “the pathetically inefficient market doesn’t seem to have a clue as to what is going on.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 6, 2026
O’Brien argued that the nation’s labor laws were pathetically weak.
From Slate ● Jul. 16, 2024
You can't entirely blame them: It all seems like badly written fiction, acted by Z-listers who dress poorly, act pathetically and perform like drunken zombies.
From Salon ● Sep. 21, 2023
But Gosling, as the neediest, most pathetically insecure Ken of the lot, rises to delicious new levels of actorly self-mockery.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2023
Beside the new prisoners, the older prisoners like me looked pathetically weak and incapable of any kind of real labor.
From "Prisoner B-3087" by Alan Gratz
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.
