How to Use pity in a Sentence

pity

1 of 2 noun
  • I felt deep pity for the lost dog.
  • She has had a hard life and deserves your pity.
  • He didn't live to see his daughter grow up, and that's a pity.
  • There can be a lot of self pity and a lot of challenges.
    Hannah Kirby, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11 Jan. 2022
  • The real pity is that finances should be the easy part.
    New York Times, 7 Feb. 2022
  • Julie took some pity on me and offered to play a game of cards.
    A. J. Jacobs, New York Times, 11 Jan. 2023
  • But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
    Ysolt Usigan, Woman's Day, 31 Aug. 2022
  • The look was met not with ridicule or pity but with something even worse.
    Kaitlyn Greenidge, Harper's BAZAAR, 5 Feb. 2023
  • Here’s what autism isn’t, Gross says – something to be scared of or pity.
    Clare Mulroy, USA TODAY, 4 Apr. 2023
  • Even now, Bankman-Fried is viewed as an object of pity.
    Matthew Continetti, National Review, 17 Dec. 2022
  • So much sorrow and so much pity, even as the Germans are gone.
    Rachel Kushner, Harper’s Magazine , 25 May 2022
  • The pity pickle gave him the mental and physical strength to live on.
    Meghan Overdeep, Southern Living, 29 Oct. 2023
  • Neither the townsfolk nor the tourists lord it over the others or pity each other.
    Christopher Arnott, courant.com, 17 Nov. 2021
  • Time for self-pity is limited when the lights are up and the audience is in its seats.
    Matthew Hennessey, WSJ, 25 Aug. 2022
  • But free agency moves quickly in the NFL, so there’s no time for a pity party.
    Dallas News, 16 Mar. 2022
  • Mack, Inez and Gia have no use for our pity or concern.
    Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 1 Nov. 2023
  • His face softens with a mixture of concern and pity, an I-hate-to-tell-you-this look.
    Longreads, 8 Feb. 2024
  • Sachs even feels a certain amount of pity for Tomas, in whom the helmer may see a certain amount of himself.
    Peter Debruge, Variety, 24 Jan. 2023
  • Rhaenys doesn’t have much pity given what happened to Laenor.
    Omar L. Gallaga, Washington Post, 10 Oct. 2022
  • If that was so, then what about the indoor man at the coffee shop who had long since run out of pity for the homeless?
    William T. Vollmann, Harper's Magazine, 16 Oct. 2023
  • No time for pity, the Lumberjacks (3-6, 2-4 Big Sky) are back on the road at a place that presents its own challenges.
    The Arizona Republic, 12 Nov. 2022
  • That would be a pity, for each minute, each second of life is a miracle.
    Ellen McGirt, Fortune, 16 Dec. 2022
  • What a pity that Sherriff Joe Arpaio is no longer available.
    Aaron Gregg, Washington Post, 24 May 2023
  • Walking through such a space scrawling in a notebook with a felt-tip earned glances full of pity.
    Arkansas Online, 23 Oct. 2022
  • There's no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear.
    Alexis Jones, PEOPLE.com, 15 July 2022
  • This is a pity for Ukraine, not least because Israel is a world leader in drones.
    David Hambling, Forbes, 27 Jan. 2023
  • This would be a pity for nature but also a major loss for the growers.
    Stacey Leasca, Travel + Leisure, 16 Feb. 2024
  • The student, a young woman, threw me a look that can be summarized in one word: pity.
    Robert Klose, The Christian Science Monitor, 8 Feb. 2023
  • But if you’re tempted to feel sorry for him, Fabian would urge you to save your pity.
    Kevin Baxter, Los Angeles Times, 2 Jan. 2024
  • There, the movie’s villains are revealed to be more worthy of pity than terror.
    David Sims, The Atlantic, 25 May 2022
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pity

2 of 2 verb
  • I pity anyone who has to work at that place.
  • I always pity the people who have to work in this freezing weather.
  • And both sides have reason to pity themselves as the losers of the system.
    Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review, 23 Jan. 2018
  • The Bengals pitied the vanquished and took their foot off the gas in the second half.
    Dennis Manoloff, cleveland.com, 1 Oct. 2017
  • Pity the poor billionaires who are about to take the oath of office.
    Charles Duhigg, New York Times, 19 Jan. 2017
  • There’s no room to pity the gazelles who must tiptoe around him.
    Dennis Harvey, Variety, 2 Dec. 2023
  • There are people who are hurt by things in life that are easy to name and be pitied for.
    Lea Carpenter, Time, 19 July 2019
  • Oh, pity the hearts of fathers and mothers far and near!
    Hasan Dudar, Detroit Free Press, 8 Dec. 2017
  • For a moment, waiting for the horn to sound, Legacy pitied her.
    Melody Chiu, PEOPLE.com, 26 July 2019
  • In a follow-up post, Woods urged well-wishers not to pity her.
    Toyin Owoseje, CNN, 21 Nov. 2019
  • Why pity her for making her own bed and now being forced to lie in it?
    Ashlee Marie Preston, Teen Vogue, 19 Mar. 2018
  • The moral of the story: No one benefits from being pitied.
    Danielle C. Belton, The Root, 27 Apr. 2018
  • Homos were perhaps to be pitied but preferably to be locked away.
    Kevin Riordan, Philly.com, 1 Nov. 2017
  • While Killmonger could be pitied, Klaue is nothing but the worst.
    Michael Sangiacomo, cleveland.com, 13 Feb. 2018
  • But there was no need to pity this busy bride, whose apron would soon be traded for Dior Haute Couture.
    Rob Haskell, Vogue, 16 July 2017
  • Lenù’s best friend, Lila, shows no signs of development; for this, Lenù seems to pity her.
    Jessica Winter, The New Yorker, 27 Oct. 2022
  • Nobody forced me to pity myself and pick at my food for a semester.
    Amber Rambharose, Glamour, 16 Aug. 2017
  • That said, no one should pity those people whispering their fears to CNN.
    Michael Arceneaux, The Root, 24 July 2017
  • Nixon pitied himself because the press fawned on the Beautiful People—jet-setters of the time.
    Robert Dallek, The Hive, 7 Sep. 2017
  • But do not pity the poor hangman with no one to kill; his self-pity is more than sufficient.
    New York Times, 21 Apr. 2022
  • Hesse said the narrative veterans need to be pitied needs to be shifted.
    Tracy Neal, arkansasonline.com, 11 Nov. 2023
  • He’s put a governor on his emotions, most of the time, although, pity the fool who works for him and neglects to do his work.
    Gordon Monson, The Salt Lake Tribune, 12 Nov. 2021
  • These are the Warriors, not the Little Sisters of the Poor, so nobody’s going to pity their misfortune.
    Dan Wolken, USA TODAY, 4 June 2019
  • Rather than rallying around him, top Democrats lashed out at Clinton for his self-pitying tone.
    Steve Kornacki, NBC News, 5 Oct. 2019
  • When things don’t go well, the audience is meant to pity her as just another victim of Leighton Meester’s queen bee, Blair Waldorf.
    Los Angeles Times, 29 July 2021
  • For this reason everybody pitied them no less than the sufferers.
    Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, 30 Mar. 2020
  • Alex is lonely and self-pitying after Jessica dumped him for Justin again.
    Ariana Romero, refinery29.com, 24 Aug. 2019
  • Is there an alternate timeline where Omar was pitied by someone in power and given a chance to not become a killer?
    Edgar Gomez, Longreads, 13 June 2017
  • Is that a way to get us to almost pity him for his professed inadequacies as a husband and father?
    Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Apr. 2020
  • But people in their 30s still sorting by popularity are more to be pitied than feared.
    Carolyn Hax, Washington Post, 17 May 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'pity.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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