take pity on

Idioms  

1. Also, have pity on. Show compassion or mercy to, as in Take pity on the cook and eat that last piece of cake, or, as Miles Coverdale's 1535 translation of the Bible has it (Job 19:21), “Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye, my friends.” This idiom may be used half-jokingly, as in the first example, or seriously. [Late 1200s]

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Example Sentences

My role was to kick Elvis in the shin so a girl he liked would take pity on him.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 17, 2026

“I just have to have faith for a miracle to happen and the government to take pity on old people like me.”

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 31, 2023

A poor Caribbean couple in Paris take pity on their deposed president when they find him living in poverty and exile.

From New York Times • Apr. 7, 2023

Arrested in June, the suspect initially said that the story of the accident was a "bad joke", invented in order to make his ex-girlfriend take pity on him.

From BBC • Nov. 18, 2022

The men ladling the soup were prisoners too, and sometimes one of them would take pity on me, stir the bottom of the pot, and put a real piece of potato into my bowl.

From "The Boy on the Wooden Box" by Leon Leyson

Related Words

• feel for
• forgive
• pardon