Word.ws English Dictionary

no pain, no gain

no pain, no gain proverb: one must be willing to endure some inconvenience or discomfort (e.g., hard work, risk, or both) in order to achieve worthwhile goals.

Proverb

no pain, no gain

  1. One must be willing to endure some inconvenience or discomfort (e.g., hard work, risk, or both) in order to achieve worthwhile goals.
    • Near-synonyms: nothing ventured, nothing gained; no guts, no glory; no risk, no gain

no pain, no gain meaning in Arabic, Persian, Vietnamese and Myanmar

no pain, no gain in Arabic

discomfort is necessary to achieve goals
مَنْ جَدَّ وَجَدَ وَمَنْ زَرَعَ حَصَدَ man jadda wajada waman zaraʕa ḥaṣada

no pain, no gain in Persian

discomfort is necessary to achieve goals
نابرده رنج گنج میسر نمی شود

no pain, no gain in Vietnamese

discomfort is necessary to achieve goals
không vào hang cọp sao bắt được cọp con, tay làm hàm nhai

no pain, no gain in Myanmar

discomfort is necessary to achieve goals
အနာခံမှ အသာစံရ a.nahkamhma. a.sacam-ra.

Synonyms of no pain, no gain

Forms of no pain, no gain

alternative formno pains, no gains
alternative formno gain without pain

Origin of no pain, no gain

Came into prominence around 1982 through the American actress Jane Fonda's aerobic workout videos.

Questions about no pain, no gain

What does no pain, no gain mean?
No pain, no gain means one must be willing to endure some inconvenience or discomfort (e.g., hard work, risk, or both) in order to achieve worthwhile goals.
What is no pain, no gain in Arabic?
No pain, no gain in Arabic is مَنْ جَدَّ وَجَدَ وَمَنْ زَرَعَ حَصَدَ (man jadda wajada waman zaraʕa ḥaṣada). See No pain, no gain meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is no pain, no gain?
No pain, no gain is a proverb.

Words near no pain, no gain in the dictionary

  1. no one should be judge in his own case
  2. no one should be judge in his own cause
  3. no one's fool
  4. no one's fools
  5. no outlet
  6. no pain, no gain
  7. no parking
  8. no parking whitebeam
  9. no parking whitebeams
  10. no peace for the weary
  11. no picnic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: no pain, no gain (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-no pain, no gain.ogg.

Cite this entry: “no pain, no gain.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/no_pain%2C_no_gain. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.