adj. 25B6; adjective
a child in a pitiful state : DISTRESSING, sad, piteous, pitiable, pathetic, heart-rending, heartbreaking, moving, touching, tear-jerking; plaintive, poignant, forlorn; poor, sorry, wretched, abject, miserable.
a pitiful £50 a month : PALTRY, miserable, meagre, insufficient, trifling, negligible, pitiable, derisory; informal pathetic, measly, piddling, mingy; Brit. informal poxy.
his performance was pitiful : DREADFUL, awful, terrible, lamentable, hopeless, poor, bad, feeble, pitiable, woeful, inadequate, below par, deplorable, laughable; informal pathetic, useless, appalling, lousy, abysmal, dire.