pitying

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of pity.

   Pitying the stranded travelers, the innkeeper offered them free rooms.

   He spent the whole evening pitying himself instead of fixing the problem.

   Note

   The -ing form of pity keeps its y before the suffix: pitying, never pitiing. As a verb it is transitive and needs a direct object. It is often reflexive, as in pitying oneself, because you pity someone; you do not pity for them. The same spelling also serves as a noun, the act of pitying, and only that noun can take a plural.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of feeling sorry for another person's misfortune or suffering.

   There was a quiet pitying in the way she watched the orphaned children play.

   His endless pitying of the beggar did nothing to change the man's circumstances.

   Similarcommiseration, compassion, sympathy

   Note

   Pity names the feeling, but this noun names the act, so it can be counted. Robert Leighton, Archbishop of Glasgow, says in A Practical Commentary upon the First Epistle (1849) that God's mercies and compassions are not "barren, fruitless pityings," meaning sympathy that stays a gesture and helps no one. The plural pityings is what sets it apart from pity, which is usually uncountable.

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