pity: [13] Latin pius ‘pious’, an adjective of unknown origin which gave English expiate and pious, had a noun derivative pietās. This has come into English in three distinct forms. First to arrive, more or less contemporaneously, were pity and piety [13], which were borrowed from respectively Old French pite and piete. These both developed from Latin pietās, and were originally synonymous, but they became differentiated in meaning before they arrived in English.
The Italian descendant of the Latin noun was pietà, which English took over in the 17th century as a term for a ‘statue of Mary holding the body of the crucified Christ’. Vulgar Latin *pietantia, a derivative of pietās, meant ‘charitable donation’. It has given English pittance [13]. => expiate, piety, pious, pittance
pity (n.)
early 13c., from Old French pite, pitet "pity, mercy, compassion, care, tenderness; pitiful state, wretched condition" (11c., Modern French pitié), from Latin pietatem (nominative pietas) "piety, loyalty, duty" (see piety). Replaced Old English mildheortness, literally "mild-heartness," itself a loan-translation of Latin misericordia. English pity and piety were not fully distinguished until 17c. Transferred sense of "grounds or cause for pity" is from late 14c.
pity (v.)
"to feel pity for," late 15c., from Old French pitier and from pity (n.). Related: Pitied; pitying.
例文
1. She summoned up all her pity for him,to smother her self- pity .
彼女は心の中の自分の哀れみを抑えて、彼に哀れみの気持ちを注いだ。
2.Leo went on,his dark eyes wide with pity and concern.
レオは続けて言った。彼の黒い目は哀れみと思いやりに満ちて大きくにらみつけた。
3.Supposedly his last words to her were:"You must not pity me."
彼が彼女に言った最後の言葉は、「私を哀れむな」
dl>
4だったという。She knew that she was an object of pity among her friends.
彼女は自分が友人たちの同情の対象であることを知っている。
5.The pity of it was that the Americans didn 't play cricket.