painful

• painfull (archaic)

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

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpeɪn.fəl/

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painful (comparative painfuller or more painful, superlative painfullest or most painful)

1. Causing pain or distress, either physical or mental. [from 14th c.]
2. Afflicted or suffering with pain (of a body part or, formerly, of a person). [from 15th c.]
3. Requiring effort or labor; difficult, laborious. [from 15th c.]
4. (now rare) Painstaking; careful; industrious. [from 16th c.]
   • 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, in Kupperman 1988, p. 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.

   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, Book 2, Ch. 2

     For twenty generations, here was the earthly arena where painful living men worked out their life-wrestle

5. (informal) Very bad, poor.

   His violin playing is painful.

• (full of pain): doleful, sorrowful, smartful, irksome, annoying
• (requiring labor or toil): laborious, exerting

• (causing pain): painless, painfree

• painfully
• painfulness