These words refer to the compassion, concern or empathy that can, or should, be aroused by viewing the situation of another living thing. Pathetic pertains to compassionate concern or sorrow that is or should be inspired by those less fortunate than oneself. The word stresses circumstances in which a sufferer is reduced to abject helplessness: the pathetic struggle of the rabbit to free itself from the steel jaws of the trap; those pathetic cases in which a child gets little love from either parent; his pathetic cries for help. The word usually implies that an innocent victim has unjustly or unfairly been harmed through no fault of his own. Pitiful may be used exactly like pathetic , but it has a wider range of use beyond this context. It can, for example, be used even when the victim may have contributed to his own plight or is wholly responsible for it: the pitiful loneliness of the alcoholic. It may also be used of someone who may not see himself as victimized in any way and who, in fact, may seem more fortunate than oneself: the king’s pitiful outbursts of incoherent rage against his most loyal advisers; strutting and boasting about his virility in a most pitiful way.

Poignant and touching are closely related: they both depart from the situation of victimization or misfortune to indicate anything that arouses one’s tender compassion or empathy. Touching is the more informal of the two, suggesting a winning appeal or inevitably affecting scene: the mother cat’s touching zeal for the welfare of her kittens; his touching request that he be given one last chance to prove himself. The word most commonly suggests an audience that is actually affected by the scene, whereas pathetic and pitiful may imply no audience at all or one that is hard-hearted: a pathetic figure that no one, in the rush of indifferent passers-by, found the least bit touching . This same distinction holds for poignant , which stresses the actual arousal of a bittersweet responsiveness that mingles pity and longing or other contradictory emotions. The word once emphasized the presence of any sort of keen, sharp feelings, but it now more often points to an ambivalence inherent in subtle or gentle shades of compassion, wistfulness or nostalgia: Her pitiful face had not seemed touching to him at the time, but recalling it now filled him with a poignant sorrow and delight.

Moving functions more like touching and poignant than pathetic and pitiful , but it suggests the actual arousal of stronger emotions than any of these words, applying to compassion and empathy and also to a wide range of emotions beyond them: the anger he aroused by his moving demand for an investigation of the tragic fire: a moving scene of reconciliation at the end of the short story. Except when applied to a work of art, the word often suggests an arousal to specific action: a moving appeal that the pathetic victims of the plot be compensated for the injustices they had suffered. Pitiable is unique among these words in stressing that someone is deserving of pity whether or not this condition is noticed by others – or even detectable by them: a pitiable emptiness that he kept hidden under an outwardly happy and successful life; poverty made all the more pitiable by the indifference of the town’s more fortunate citizens.