# pain

Pronunciation: US say "PAYN" /peɪn/; UK

## Noun

1. An unpleasant physical feeling caused by injury, illness, childbirth, or something going wrong in the body.
   - Simple: A hurting feeling in your body, such as when you are injured, ill, or giving birth.
   - _A dull pain spread across his lower back as the day wore on._
   - _Doctors asked her to rate the pain on a scale from one to ten._
2. Mental suffering or anguish; deep emotional distress or torment.
   - Simple: A deep feeling of sadness or suffering in the mind.
   - _The pain of betrayal cut deeper than any physical wound._
   - _Years after the war, the pain of those memories had not faded._
3. An annoying or troublesome person or thing. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Someone or something that is very annoying.
   - _Assembling the new furniture turned out to be a real pain._
   - _The new neighbor is a pain about where everyone parks._
5. Effort, labor, or careful trouble taken in doing something.
   - Simple: Careful effort or hard work put into doing something well.
   - _He took considerable pains over the wording of the letter._
   - _For all her pains, the project was canceled at the last minute._

## Verb

4. To cause someone pain or distress, whether in body or mind; to hurt or grieve.
   - Simple: To hurt someone, in their body or their feelings, or to make them sad.
   - _His harsh words pained her more than she was willing to admit._
   - _It would pain her parents to learn that she had dropped out of college._
6. To hurt or be in pain, said of a person or of a part of the body. *(India)*
   - Simple: To hurt or feel sore.
   - _After the overnight bus journey, my lower back is paining badly._
   - _Her knees pain every time she climbs the stairs to the third floor._

## Noun

7. Suffering imposed as a punishment or penalty for wrongdoing. *(dated)*
   - Simple: Punishment given for breaking a rule or law.
   - _Soldiers were forbidden to desert their posts on pain of execution._
   - _The decree banned the gathering on pain of imprisonment._

## Verb

8. To punish someone by inflicting suffering as a penalty. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To punish someone by making them suffer.

## Origin

This sense came from Middle English peyne, from Old French and Anglo-Norman peine, from Latin poena ('punishment, pain'), which came from Ancient Greek poinḗ ('bloodmoney, fine, penalty, price paid'), ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'payment'. It is related to German Pein and Dutch pijn.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/pain (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).