Definition of "piteously"

He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step.

1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave I. Marley’s Ghost.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], pages 36–37

Across her mind, and bowing over him,Low to her own heart piteously she said:

1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Enid”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], page 5

Little Sea and Desire would wail piteously over my body for a day, and then I should be quickly forgotten.

1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka, Eland, published 2019, page 194

Adam himself bewildered and Eveless outside the garden; a Minotaur howling piteously in a labyrinth of money-worries.

1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 132