painstaking

• (archaic) pains-taking

From pains +‎ taking.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈpeɪnˌsteɪkɪŋ/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpeɪnzˌteɪkɪŋ/

painstaking (comparative more painstaking, superlative most painstaking)

1. Carefully attentive to details; diligent in performing a process or procedure.
   • Harris

     All these painstaking men, considered together, may be said to have completed another species of criticism.

• See also Thesaurus:industrious
• See also Thesaurus:meticulous

• painstakingly, painstakingness

painstaking (countable and uncountable, plural painstakings)

1. The application of careful and attentive effort.
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, chapter 10, in The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     I esteeme Bocace his Decameron, Rabelais, and the kisses of John the second (if they may be placed under this title) worth the paines-taking to reade them.

   • Thomas Chalmers

     It is not by a flight of imagination that you gain the ascents of spiritual experience. It is by the toils and the watchings and the painstakings of a solid obedience.

   • Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham

     Behold what an abundant recompense attends the small processes of the earth, with the help of a little warm air; and what wealthy returns the industry of the husbandman and the florist is preparing from a few seeds and painstakings.