# painful

Pronunciation: say "PAYN-fuhl" /ˈpeɪn.fəl/

## Adjective

1. Causing pain or distress, whether to the body or to the mind.
   - Simple: Causing hurt to your body or your feelings.
   - _The injection was brief but surprisingly painful._
   - _Recalling the accident remained painful for years afterward._
2. Affected by or suffering pain; sore: said of a body part or, in older usage, of a person.
   - Simple: Sore and hurting, said about a part of the body.
   - _The nurse gently examined his painful, swollen ankle._
   - _A painful wrist made typing difficult for weeks._
3. Requiring great effort or labor; difficult and demanding.
   - Simple: Needing a lot of hard work and effort.
   - _The painful task of sorting decades of records took the whole summer._
   - _Rebuilding the village after the flood was a long and painful effort._
4. Extremely bad; of notably poor quality. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Very bad or of poor quality.
   - _The movie's dialogue was so painful that half the audience left early._
   - _Their performance in the final match was painful from start to finish._

## Adjective

5. Painstaking and careful; hardworking and industrious. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: Working hard and taking great care over things.
   - _A painful craftsman, he measured each joint before cutting._
   - _The painful scholar spent years copying the manuscripts by hand._

## Origin

From Middle English paynful (also spelled peinful, peynful), formed from "pain" plus the suffix "-ful," comparable to Danish pinefuld meaning "painful."

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