pain
noun · verb
Simple meaning
An ache or bodily suffering, or an instance of this.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
paynIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpeɪn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
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.
now usually in the plural
The pangs or sufferings of childbirth, caused by contractions of the uterus.
chiefly in the plural
Labour; effort; great care or trouble taken in doing something.
countablefrom pain in the neck
An annoying person or thing.
uncountable
The condition or fact of suffering or anguish especially mental, as opposed to pleasure; torment; distress
A bothersome annoying person
“That kid is a terrible pain.”
verb
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.
intransitiveindia
To feel pain; to hurt.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (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.
Used this way, pain is a reasonably familiar word carrying real weight of difficulty or hurt. It carries more force than its gentler alternatives. It turns up most in medicine or healthcare and personal or emotional discussion contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Strongly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Strongly negative / painful
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Personal/emotional discussion
- Literature/storytelling
Usage note
Pain is emotionally heavy: it suggests deep or lasting feeling, not a passing mood, so it can overstate a small reaction.
Nearby words
- botheration , rarer, so it draws attention
- painfulness , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use pain
- “The patient developed severe pain and distension.”noun
- “As the intensity increased the sensation changed from tickle to pain.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
An effortful attempt to attain a goal.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Causing physical or psychological pain.
Not causing physical or psychological pain.
Unpleasantly.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Something or someone that causes trouble.
A bothersome annoying person.
A medicine used to relieve pain.
A somatic sensation of acute discomfort.
The lowest intensity of stimulation at which pain is experienced.
A unit measuring the intensity of pain.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A medicine used to relieve pain.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- symptomnoun
- dysfunctionnoun
- medicationnoun
- diarrheanoun
- inflammationnoun
- fatiguenoun
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Antonyms
Sense: ache or bodily suffering
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.