寂しい can mean "pathetic"? Is it true that can be used to describe someone as "pathetic" ? (pathetic in the sense like someone is cheating in a game: pathetic. and like someone is robbing a grandma: pathetic. and like someone who doesn't wish to work and just wanted to live off others: pathetic) The dictionaries I use only list them as "lonely, lonesome, solitary, desolate" so I'm wondering if the "pathetic" meaning of is widely used (or used at all)

I hear used as a derogatory word, usually in the form . The literal meaning of would be “lonely person,” but it means more like “a person without friends.” So calling someone as is equivalent to claiming that the person has no friends, and it could be an insult.

I consider simply as yet another phrase used to insult someone, mostly independent of whether the speaker really thinks that the referent deserves no friends or not. I do not know if it is similar to “pathetic” in usage.