Infinitive complement

• see: It was pitiful to see the poor horse, flat on its side, twitching.

Modifies a noun

• sight: Darius ' heart cracked at the pitiful sight of a man broken by the weight of his worries.

• excuse: What a pitiful excuse, when the government have been in power for nearly five years.

• creature: It didn't follow through to the pitiful creature Hughes eventually became.

• existence: Having said that, it is sad that people are treated just as customers; we are all in this pitiful existence together.

• wage: Robert is one of the thousands of waiters who struggle to feed their families on pitiful wages in an ailing economy.

• attempt: Saw a whole village's worth of people, all tied together in a pitiful attempt to save their own lives through common struggle.

Modifying Another Word

• rather: I knew I should have had something more than just a rather pitiful BBC canteen sandwich for lunch.

• so: We are so pitiful, but we're tired.

• very: And thus we see " the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.

• truly: I am afraid that I consider that putting up a few warning signs is a truly pitiful response.

• fairly: This sort of security can leave our bank balances at the end of the day fairly pitiful.

• equally: Both scenarios are equally possible and both are equally pitiful.

Used with adjective complement

• look: For all our good work down the left we looked pitiful down the right.

• seem: It seemed pitiful to see so good a model left to country admirers and a country way of thought.

• become: She reconciles herself with the lot of a woman who is beaten, without becoming pitiful.