I feel like there's a word that's buried in my head that's refusing to answer my calls, that means to "elicit empathy".
Any help would be appreciated. It might be a word that doesn't have the word "able" in it. Something like "poor", but without the connotation of being depraved. The best I can come up with is "relatable".
Best Answer
Sympathetic is the first word that comes to mind: it can mean both feeling sympathy and causing sympathy. Here are the two relevant definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary: