pity

If you feel pity, you feel sympathy for someone else's suffering. A documentary on prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted might make you feel pity for them.

Use pity as a noun or a verb. You feel pity for the really bad singer so you try to look attentive, but then you pity yourself for having to suffer through his terrible rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." We also say something is a pity if it's something to be sad about. It's a pity that your computer crashed right after you finished your paper.

Definitions of pity
  1. noun
    a feeling of sympathy and sorrow for the misfortunes of others
    “the blind are too often objects of pity”
    synonyms: commiseration, pathos, ruth
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    type of:
    fellow feeling, sympathy
    sharing the feelings of others (especially feelings of sorrow or anguish)
  2. noun
    the humane quality of understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it
    synonyms: compassion
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    type of:
    mercifulness, mercy
    a disposition to be kind and forgiving
  3. noun
    an unfortunate development
    “it's a pity he couldn't do it”
    synonyms: shame
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    type of:
    bad luck, misfortune
    unnecessary and unforeseen trouble resulting from an unfortunate event
  4. verb
    share the suffering of
    synonyms: compassionate, condole with, feel for, sympathize with
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    types:
    commiserate, sympathise, sympathize
    to feel or express sympathy or compassion
    care
    feel concern or interest
    condole
    express one's sympathetic grief, on the occasion of someone's death
    type of:
    grieve, sorrow
    feel grief
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