painful
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English
Alternative forms
- painfull (archaic)
Etymology
From Middle English paynful, peinful, peynful, paynefull, peynefull, equivalent to pain + -ful. Compare Danish pinefuld (“painful”).
Pronunciation
Adjective
painful (comparative painfuller or more painful, superlative painfullest or most painful)
- Causing pain or distress, either physical or mental.
- Afflicted or suffering with pain (of a body part or, formerly, of a person).
- Requiring effort or labor; difficult, laborious.
- (archaic) Painstaking; careful; industrious.
- 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, Kupperman, published 1988, page 142:
- The men bestow their times in fishing, hunting, warres, and such manlike exercises, scorning to be seene in any woman-like exercise, which is the cause that the women be very painefull, and the men often idle.
- 1791, James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson:
- To all these painful labourers Johnson shewed a never-ceasing kindness, so far as they stood in need of it.
- 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, chapter 2, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk):
- For twenty generations, here was the earthly arena where painful living men worked out their life-wrestle
- (informal) Very bad, poor.
- His violin playing is painful.
Synonyms
- (full of pain): doleful, sorrowful, smartful, irksome, annoying
- (requiring labor or toil): laborious, exerting
Antonyms
Derived terms
Translations
causing pain
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suffering with pain
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requiring labor or toil
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