pain
/ˈpeɪ̯n/ noun, verb, proper noun
Also a form of paine
Forms pains paining pained paine
- noun (countable and uncountable) An ache or bodily suffering, or an instance of this; an unpleasant sensation, resulting from a derangement of functions, disease, or injury by violence; hurt. “The greatest difficulty lies in treating patients with chronic pain.”
- noun (now usually in the plural) The pangs or sufferings of childbirth, caused by contractions of the uterus.
- noun (uncountable) The condition or fact of suffering or anguish especially mental, as opposed to pleasure; torment; distress “In the final analysis, pain is a fact of life.”
- noun (countable, from pain in the neck) An annoying person or thing. “Your mother is a right pain.”
- noun (uncountable, dated) Suffering inflicted as punishment or penalty. “You may not leave this room on pain of death.”
- noun (chiefly in the plural) Labour; effort; great care or trouble taken in doing something.
- verb (transitive) To hurt; to put to bodily uneasiness or anguish; to afflict with uneasy sensations of any degree of intensity; to torment; to torture. “The wound pained him.”
- verb (transitive) To render uneasy in mind; to disquiet; to distress; to grieve. “It pains me to say that I must let you go.”
- verb (transitive, obsolete) To inflict suffering upon as a penalty; to punish.
- verb (intransitive, dated) To hurt; to feel painful.
- verb (intransitive, India) To feel pain; to hurt. “Please help me: I am paining hard.”
- noun (obsolete, cooking) Any of various breads stuffed with a filling.
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
anguish rend difficulty distress grief hardship smart torment torture trouble pest annoyance bother faff grievance hassle inconvenience irritation nuisance palaver hurting painfulness pain sensation painful sensation pain in the neck botheration infliction pain in the ass ail hurt
Antonyms
pleasure beatitude bliss delectation delight ecstasy euphoria lust nirvana rapture ravishment transport
Etymology
From Middle English peyne, payne, from Old French and Anglo-Norman peine, paine, from Latin poena (“punishment, pain”), from Ancient Greek ποινή (poinḗ, “bloodmoney, weregild, fine, price paid, penalty”), from Proto-Hellenic *kʷoinā́, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷoynéh₂ (“payment”) (whence also Proto-Slavic *cěnà (“price”)).
Doublet of peine. Compare Danish pine, Norwegian Bokmål pine, German Pein, Dutch pijn, Afrikaans pyn. See also pine (the verb). Partly displaced native Old English sār (whence Modern English sore).
From Middle English payn (“a kind of pie with a soft crust”), from Old French pain (“bread”).
Backformation from pain (“pain in the ass”)
Webster’s 1913
- noun Punishment suffered or denounced; suffering or evil inflicted as a punishment for crime, or connected with the commission of a crime; penalty. Chaucer.
- noun Any uneasy sensation in animal bodies, from slight uneasiness to extreme distress or torture, proceeding from a derangement of functions, disease, or injury by violence; bodily distress; bodily suffering; an ache; a smart. "The pain of Jesus Christ." Chaucer.
- verb To inflict suffering upon as a penalty; to punish. [Obs.] Wyclif (Acts xxii. 5).
- verb To put to bodily uneasiness or anguish; to afflict with uneasy sensations of any degree of intensity; to torment; to torture; as, his dinner or his wound pained him; his stomach pained him. Excess of cold, as well as heat, pains us. Lock
Etymology [OE. peine, F. peine, fr. L. poena, penalty, punishment, torment, pain; akin to Gr. penalty. Cf. Penal, Pine to languish, Punish.]
Etymology [OE. peinen, OF. pener, F. peiner to fatigue. See Pain, n.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “pain”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details