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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

painfully.

In a painful manner; as if in pain.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adv/ˈpeɪnfəli/
  1. In a painful manner; as if in pain.

    I limped painfully down the stairs.
  2. Badly; poorly.

    informal
    That was the most painfully sung rendition of “Fly Me to the Moon” that I’ve ever heard.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English peinfully, paynefully, equivalent to painful + -ly.

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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.