Meaning & use
pain
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Meanings
nouncountable or uncountable
An unpleasant physical feeling caused by illness, injury, or damage to the body.
Grammar: Uncountable when talking about it in general; countable when pointing to a specific episode: 'a sharp pain in my knee'.
Patterns
- pain in something
- a pain in your back/leg/chest
- be in pain
- cause pain
She felt a sudden pain in her lower back.
The medicine helped ease the pain after surgery.
He was in constant pain for weeks.
noununcountable
Emotional suffering caused by a sad, difficult, or upsetting situation.
Grammar: Usually uncountable and often used with words like 'deep', 'great', or 'emotional'.
Patterns
- emotional pain
- the pain of something
- cause someone pain
- ease someone's pain
The pain of losing a close friend never fully goes away.
He hid his emotional pain behind a smile.
Writing about the experience helped her deal with the pain.
nounsingularinformal
A person or thing that is annoying or difficult to deal with.
Grammar: Informal and usually singular, often in the phrase 'a pain' or 'a pain in the neck'.
Patterns
- a pain
- a pain in the neck
- be a pain to do something
My little brother can be such a pain when he's bored.
Getting a visa was a real pain.
This old printer is a pain to set up.
Word forms
| plural | pains |
|---|
Common combinations
- sharp pain
- He felt a sharp pain in his chest and called a doctor.
- chronic pain
- She has lived with chronic pain for over ten years.
- ease the pain
- A warm bath can help ease the pain.
- cause pain
- The injury caused him pain for months.
- a pain in the neck
- Waiting in long lines is a pain in the neck.
Synonyms and how they differ
- ache
- Ache usually describes a continuous, dull pain rather than a sudden sharp one.
- soreness
- Soreness is milder and often the result of using muscles too much.
- suffering
- Suffering is broader and focuses on the experience of enduring pain, especially emotional.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: pain or pane? pain or paint?
pain vs pane
A pane is a sheet of glass in a window; pain is the feeling.
pain vs paint
Paint is a colored liquid or the act of covering a surface with it.
Practice
She has been suffering from a sharp ___ in her knee since the accident.
Choose one answer.
'Pain' is the correct noun for a physical sensation. 'Pane' means a sheet of glass, 'paint' is a liquid, and 'pains' would be plural but the sentence uses 'a sharp', which requires a singular noun.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “pain”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.