How to Use pathetic in a Sentence

pathetic

adjective

• The blind, old dog was a pathetic sight.
• His car is a pathetic piece of junk.
• The story he told was a pathetic attempt to cover up a lie.
• The team was pretty bad last year, but this year they're downright pathetic.
• This @nickfuentes git is more pathetic than the most snowflakey (snowflake).
  — Fox News, 22 Dec. 2019
• Most of it has been plagued by pathetic showings on the field.
  — Scooby Axson, USA TODAY, 30 Oct. 2022
• There’s even been talk of the need for some sort of amnesty, which sounds pretty pathetic.
  — Agustino Fontevecchia, Forbes, 29 Oct. 2021
• That's not the most pathetic thing a man has ever done.
  — Philip Martin, Arkansas Online, 17 Jan. 2023
• The mum-and-dad state were to give the pathetic little creatures their due, thank you very much.
  — The Economist, 8 Jan. 2020
• That’s sad and pathetic and horrible all at the same time.
  — Rebecca Rosenberg, Fox News, 5 May 2023
• It’s all so sad and pathetic, these games people play with the good people of this state.
  — Joseph Goodman | [e-mail], al, 26 Oct. 2021
• Gotta keep the bowl-game money rolling in, of course, and that truth makes this next part so laughably pathetic.
  — Joseph Goodman | [e-mail], al, 22 Sep. 2021
• On the Twitter, two Twitters, the tweets from 2010, is pathetic.
  — Eric Johnson, Recode, 5 Nov. 2018
• Forster is perfect, and the tone of the scene — pathetic, comic, just weird enough to stick — promises good things to come.
  — Michael Phillips, chicagotribune.com, 28 June 2018
• The trees were thin and pathetic and nearly leafless at first.
  — Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker, 8 Feb. 2021
• They just got beat 19-16 by pathetic, lowly Washington, one of the worst teams in the NFL.
  — Jeff Seidel, Detroit Free Press, 24 Nov. 2019
• The gags are sophomoric and the overall story line is as pathetic as the concept.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 17 May 2021
• One sweater-vest is pathetic, but four sweater-vests worn over sequinned miniskirts is a trend.
  — Audrey Burges, The New Yorker, 11 Sep. 2023
• This is, frankly, pathetic -- and is killing millions of people a year.
  — Dr. Tom Frieden, CNN, 30 May 2021
• Mike McCarthy’s clock management at the end of the first half was pathetic.
  — Dallas News, 28 Sep. 2021
• The officer’s bluster is even more pathetic in the face of what all these guys have had to endure.
  — Will Leitch, Vulture, 29 Sep. 2024
• And the way the LW speaks of his mother---who clearly only lied to spare them worry---is pathetic.
  — Sahaj Kaur Kohli, Washington Post, 22 June 2023
• The good news is that Pompeo is slightly less pathetic than Pence.
  — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 31 Jan. 2023
• In the premiere, Martha is made to look as dumpy and pathetic—and then as unhinged—as possible.
  — Judy Berman, TIME, 19 Apr. 2024
• Not up to snuff, that thin pathetic shell, phased out years ago by new safety standards.
  — T Kira Madden, refinery29.com, 3 Aug. 2021
• What meshed not long ago unraveled to the point of being pathetic.
  — Nick Canepa Columnist, San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 Sep. 2021
• Quaid isn’t afraid to make the elder Millard look both cruel and pathetic.
  — James Ward, azcentral, 15 Mar. 2018
• The Oslo Accords, signed in the nineties by Yitzhak Rabin, were also an act of pathetic credulity.
  — David Remnick, The New Yorker, 14 Jan. 2024
• Your tights, your shirts, your sports bras: all pathetic slackers!
  — Peter Rubin, WIRED, 24 June 2019
• The armored-truck guys are, as ever, defiantly oblivious and pathetic with op-sec (if anyone ever wants to do a heist, ask me for suggestions).
  — Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Curbed, 3 Sep. 2024

Last Updated: 17 Dec 2024