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Pain

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pain¹

  • /ˈpeɪ̯n/ US, UK
  • [ˈpʰeɪ̯n] US, UK
  • /ˈpæɪ̯n/ Australia, New Zealand
  • [ˈpʰæ̝ɪ̯n] Australia, New Zealand
  • /ˈpen/ Scotland
  • [ˈpen] Scotland

Sounds like pane (pane–pain merger) · Rhymes with -eɪn

Where it 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 pains · paine

  1. countable, uncountable 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 greatest difficulty lies in treating patients with chronic pain.
  2. countable, plural normally, uncountable The pangs or sufferings of childbirth, caused by contractions of the uterus. When the pains are every five minutes and quite strong or the cervix is five cm. dilated along with regular and strong pains, the mother is given a block anesthesia of 1 cc. of 1:200 nupercaine, 1 cc. of 10 per cent dextrose with .05 cc. of 1:1000 adrenalin.
  3. uncountable The condition or fact of suffering or anguish especially mental, as opposed to pleasure; torment; distress In the final analysis, pain is a fact of life.
  4. countable An annoying person or thing. Your mother is a right pain.
  5. dated, uncountable Suffering inflicted as punishment or penalty. You may not leave this room on pain of death.
  6. countable, in plural, uncountable Labour; effort; great care or trouble taken in doing something. The transition to N.E.P. was due to the catastrophic failure of this policy-a failure predicted by the Mensheviks and S.R.s, who for their pains had been denounced, imprisoned, and murdered as henchmen of the White Guards.

Similar: misery, pain, wark

verb pains · paining · pained · paine

  1. transitive To hurt; to put to bodily uneasiness or anguish; to afflict with uneasy sensations of any degree of intensity; to torment; to torture. The wound pained him.
  2. transitive To render uneasy in mind; to disquiet; to distress; to grieve. It pains me to say that I must let you go.
  3. obsolete, transitive To inflict suffering upon as a penalty; to punish.
  4. dated, intransitive To hurt; to feel painful. My infernal thumb pains yet like the very devil.
  5. India, intransitive To feel pain; to hurt. Please help me: I am paining hard.

pain²

  • /ˈpeɪ̯n/ US, UK
  • [ˈpʰeɪ̯n] US, UK
  • /ˈpæɪ̯n/ Australia, New Zealand
  • [ˈpʰæ̝ɪ̯n] Australia, New Zealand
  • /ˈpen/ Scotland
  • [ˈpen] Scotland

Sounds like pane (pane–pain merger) · Rhymes with -eɪn

Where it comes from

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

noun pains

  1. obsolete Any of various breads stuffed with a filling. gammon pain; Spanish pain

Similar: misery, pain, wark

Pain³

Where it comes from

Various origins:

* A variant of Paine.

* Borrowed from Spanish Paín.

proper noun Pains

  1. A surname.

PAIN⁴

Where it comes from

Backformation from pain (“pain in the ass”)

noun PAINs · PAINS

  1. abbreviation, acronym Acronym of pan-assay interference compound.pan-assay interference compound

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