Etimology
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”). 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
pain (countable and uncountable, plural pains)
(countable and 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.
(uncountable) The condition or fact of suffering or anguish especially mental, as opposed to pleasure; torment; distress
(countable, from pain in the neck) An annoying person or thing.
(uncountable, dated) Suffering inflicted as punishment or penalty.
(chiefly in the plural) Labour; effort; great care or trouble taken in doing something.
Examples
The greatest difficulty lies in treating patients with chronic pain.
I had to stop running when I started getting pains in my feet.
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.
In the final analysis, pain is a fact of life.
The pain of departure was difficult to bear.
And I should tell him all my pain,And how my life had droop’d of late,And he should sorrow o’er my stateAnd marvel what possess’d my brain; […]
Your mother is a right pain.
You may not leave this room on pain of death.
We will, by way of mulct or pain, lay it upon him.
Seb[astian]. […] [M]y duty, then, / To interpoſe; on pain of my diſpleasure, / Betwixt your Swords[.] / Dor[ax]. On pain of Infamy / He ſhould have diſobey'd.
Related words
synonyms
(an annoying person or thing): pest
See also Thesaurus:pain
antonyms
pleasure
hyponyms
agony
anguish
pang
neuropathic pain
nociceptive pain
phantom pain
psychogenic pain
related terms
pained
painful
painfully
painless
painlessly
painlessness
verb
pain (third-person singular simple present pains, present participle paining, simple past and past participle pained)
(transitive) To hurt; to put to bodily uneasiness or anguish; to afflict with uneasy sensations of any degree of intensity; to torment; to torture.
(transitive) To render uneasy in mind; to disquiet; to distress; to grieve.
(transitive, obsolete) To inflict suffering upon as a penalty; to punish.
(intransitive, India) To feel pain; to hurt.
Examples
The wound pained him.
It pains me to say that I must let you go.
Please help me, I am paining hard.
Oh my head is aching, oh Lord Damodara [Visnu], give me "kazhi". The neck is paining, oh Lord Kamadeva give me relief. My chest is paining, oh Lord Madhava, give me relief.
A lady visited the doctor, a general physician and complained of a lot of pain. The doctor asked her where she experienced pain.The lady touched her right knee and said, 'It is paining here doctor.'Then she touched her stomach and said, 'It is paining here too doctor.'
Etimology
From Middle English payn (“a kind of pie with a soft crust”), from Old French pain (“bread”).
noun
pain (plural pains)
(obsolete, cooking) Any of various breads stuffed with a filling.
Examples
gammon pain; Spanish pain