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painful

adj
/ˈpeɪn.fl̩/

Etymology

From Middle English paynful, peinful, peynful, paynefull, peynefull, equivalent to pain + -ful. Compare Danish pinefuld (“painful”).

  1. inherited from paynful

Definitions

  1. Causing pain or distress, either physical or mental.

    • In a 2008 case report from India, doctors described removing a giant tonsillolith that was making it painful for a young patient to swallow.
    • A rackingly painful disease that affects the joints and finally cripples, it is caused by an imbalance of uric acid in the system.

  2. Afflicted or suffering with pain (of a body part or, formerly, of a person).

  3. Requiring effort or labor

    Requiring effort or labor; difficult, laborious.

  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. Painstaking

      Painstaking; careful; industrious.

      • 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.
      • To all these painful labourers Johnson shewed a never-ceasing kindness, so far as they stood in need of it.
      • For twenty generations, here was the earthly arena where painful living men worked out their life-wrestle

    2. Very bad, poor.

      • His violin playing is painful.

The neighborhood

Derived

nonpainful, overpainful, painful bladder syndrome, painfully, painfulness, painful on the eyes, prepainful, unpainful

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at painful. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01painful02distress03acute04intense05feelings06feeling07sensitive08hurt

A definitional loop anchored at painful. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at painful

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA