Delicately lovely flowers are blooming in the garden.
She is a sweet, delicate-looking person who looks good in a white dress.
A rarer sense meaning deserving of pity or compassion. In modern Japanese, 可憐 is usually understood as 'delicately lovely' unless the context clearly points to misfortune or pathos.
Hearing the orphan's pitiable circumstances made my heart ache.
She stood on stage as a delicately lovely young girl.
I was moved to tears by her pitiable fate.
Delicately lovely flowers were blooming in the garden.
The girl smiled in a delicately lovely way.
哀れ is the plain, direct word for 'pitiful', while 可憐's pitiable sense is rarer and sounds more literary or old-fashioned.
愛らしい emphasizes warmth and charm that invites affection, whereas 可憐 highlights delicacy and gracefulness.
清楚 describes a neat, unadorned elegance especially in a woman's appearance, while 可憐 focuses more on delicate, touching loveliness.
Standard kanji spelling for this na-adjective and noun; the kana reading is かれん.
A Sino-Japanese word written with 可 and 憐. The spelling is conventionally associated with the idea of something that invites tender feeling or compassion; the precise historical development of the modern 'delicately lovely' nuance is not specified.