very unhappy; full of misery; "he felt depressed and miserable"; "a message of hope for suffering humanity"; "wretched prisoners huddled in stinking cages"
deserving or inciting pity; "a hapless victim"; "miserable victims of war"; "the shabby room struck her as extraordinarily pathetic"- Galsworthy; "piteous appeals for help"; "pitiable homeless children"; "a pitiful fate"; "Oh, you poor thing"; "his poor distorted limbs"; "a wretched life"