take pity on

Idioms  

1. Also, have pity on. Show compassion or mercy to, as in Take pity on the cook and eat that last piece of cake, or, as Miles Coverdale's 1535 translation of the Bible has it (Job 19:21), “Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye, my friends.” This idiom may be used half-jokingly, as in the first example, or seriously. [Late 1200s]

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Example Sentences

The nurses did not take pity on first-time mothers and offered no comfort.

From New York Times

Maybe Ivanka would take pity on him and take a pass.

From New York Times

Or — and this is a long shot — that landlords will choose to take pity on their tenants and give them more time to pay.

From Los Angeles Times

“Now we only eat because our neighbors take pity on us,” Mrs. Vasquez said from the one-room shack on a hillside shantytown that she shares with her husband and three children.

From New York Times

That makes the processing of pity even more complicated, because while we may resist self-pity, it seems there may be no going forward, no hope for the country at all, if we can’t take pity on ourselves as a nation.

From Washington Post

Related Words

• feel for
• forgive
• pardon