self-ˈpity
[self- 1 d.]
Pity or tender feeling for oneself.
| 1621 G. Sandys Ovid's Met. v. (1632) 182 She tare, Without selfe-pitty, her dis-heueled haire. 1647 H. More Philos. Poems, Insomn. Philos. xxii, They would forsake This work of God, and out of dear self-pitty Fly from the creatures. a 1711 Ken Christophil Poet. Wks. I. 504 Not thy pure Will, not thy nice Sense of Pain, Cou'd Self-indulgence, or Self-pity gain. 1859 Bain Emotions & Will viii. 135 Self⁓pity,..often very strong in the sentimentally selfish, but quite real in all who have any tender susceptibilities. 1885–94 R. Bridges Eros & Psyche Apr. viii, Disconsolate, and with self-pity pined. 1899 Crockett Kit Kennedy xxx, Self-pity is bad at any time. It is fatal at twelve. |
| attrib. a 1628 F. Grevil Alaham v. ii, This innocent..With his selfe-pitty teares, drew teares from vs. |
So
self-ˈpitiful a.,
-ˈpitifulness;
self-ˈpitying ppl. a.;
self-ˈpityingly adv.| 1754 Richardson Grandison V. xxxiv. 217, I should have thought myself concerned,..to have expatiated on the self-pitying reflexion conveyed in these words. 1880 G. Meredith Tragic Com. viii, The necessity for draining her of her self-pitifulness. Ibid., In the morning she was a dried channel of tears, no longer self-pitiful. 1899 Mackail W. Morris II. 66 ‘I feel a lonely kind of a chap’, he says of himself..half self-pityingly. 1927 C. Connolly Let. 1 Jan. in Romantic Friendship (1975) 205 Propertius too self-pitying and conceited really to suffer. a 1974 R. Crossman Diaries (1976) II. 266 Over the weekend I'd been a bit self-pitying and not merely defeatist but defeated. |