Meaning & use
painful
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Causing physical pain or emotional distress, and difficult to bear or deal with.
Grammar: Gradable; can be used with 'very' or in the comparative 'more painful'.
Patterns
- painful to someone
- a painful experience
- painful for someone
The injury was very painful, so he went to the hospital.
Losing her best friend was a painful experience.
The divorce was painful for everyone involved.
adjectivecomparable
Causing difficulty or embarrassment; awkward or unpleasant to deal with.
Grammar: Often used before nouns like 'truth' or 'decision'.
Patterns
- a painful truth
- a painful decision
- painful for someone
It was a painful truth that he had to accept.
She had to make a painful decision about her career.
The meeting was painful because no one knew what to say.
adjectivecomparableinformal
Informal: very slow, tedious, or annoying.
Grammar: Used informally to describe something boring or irritating.
Patterns
- a painful meeting
- painful to watch
The lecture was so painful that I almost fell asleep.
Waiting in line for hours was painful.
His attempt at singing was painful to listen to.
Word forms
| comparative | more painful |
|---|---|
| superlative | most painful |
Common combinations
- painful experience
- Going through the flood was a painful experience for the whole town.
- painful memory
- He tried to forget the painful memory of the accident.
- painful decision
- Closing the factory was a painful decision for the owners.
- painful to watch
- The team's performance was painful to watch.
- painful truth
- She finally told him the painful truth about his health.
Synonyms and how they differ
- aching
- Aching describes a continuous dull pain, while painful can describe any kind of pain, physical or emotional.
- sore
- Sore is used for physical tenderness, often from injury or overuse; painful is broader.
- distressing
- Distressing emphasizes emotional suffering; painful can be physical or emotional.
- agonizing
- Agonizing suggests extreme, almost unbearable pain; painful is more general.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: painful or pained?
painful vs pained
Pained describes a look or expression showing hurt, while painful describes something that causes pain.
Practice
The injection was ______, but it was over quickly.
Choose one answer.
The adjective 'painful' describes the injection. 'Painfully' is an adverb and would modify a verb, not a noun; 'pain' is a noun and would need 'a' or 'the'; 'pained' describes a person's expression, not the injection.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “painful”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.