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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

pain.

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.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈpeɪ̯n/General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈpʰeɪ̯n]General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈpæɪ̯n/Australia, New-Zealand[ˈpʰæ̝ɪ̯n]Australia, New-Zealand
  1. 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.

    countable · uncountable
    The greatest difficulty lies in treating patients with chronic pain.
    I had to stop running when I started getting pains in my feet.
  2. 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 pangs or sufferings of childbirth, caused by contractions of the uterus.

    countable · plural-normally · uncountable
  3. The condition or fact of suffering or anguish especially mental, as opposed to pleasure; torment; distress

    uncountable
    In the final analysis, pain is a fact of life.
    The pain of departure was difficult to bear.
  4. An annoying person or thing.

    countable
    Your mother is a right pain.
  5. Suffering inflicted as punishment or penalty.

    dated · uncountable
    You may not leave this room on pain of death.
  6. Labour; effort; great care or trouble taken in doing something.

    countable · in-plural · uncountable
Where this word comes from

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).

verb/ˈpeɪ̯n/General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈpʰeɪ̯n]General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈpæɪ̯n/Australia, New-Zealand[ˈpʰæ̝ɪ̯n]Australia, New-Zealand
  1. To hurt; to put to bodily uneasiness or anguish; to afflict with uneasy sensations of any degree of intensity; to torment; to torture.

    transitive
    The wound pained him.
  2. To render uneasy in mind; to disquiet; to distress; to grieve.

    transitive
    It pains me to say that I must let you go.
  3. To inflict suffering upon as a penalty; to punish.

    obsolete · transitive
  4. To hurt; to feel painful.

    dated · intransitive
  5. To feel pain; to hurt.

    India · intransitive
    Please help me: I am paining hard.
Where this word comes from

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).

noun/ˈpeɪ̯n/General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈpʰeɪ̯n]General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈpæɪ̯n/Australia, New-Zealand[ˈpʰæ̝ɪ̯n]Australia, New-Zealand
  1. Any of various breads stuffed with a filling.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English payn (“a kind of pie with a soft crust”), from Old French pain (“bread”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.