Word.ws English Dictionary

pain

/ˈpeɪ̯n/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ˈpæɪ̯n/

pain noun: 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.

Noun (1)

pain (countable and uncountable, plural pains)

  1. 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.
    • The greatest difficulty lies in treating patients with chronic pain.
    • I had to stop running when I started getting pains in my feet.
    1. (plural-normally) The pangs or sufferings of childbirth, caused by contractions of the uterus.
      • 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.1951 February, Forrest H. Howard, “The Physiologic Position for Delivery”, in Northwest Medicine, volume 50, number 2, Portland, Ore.: Northwest Medical Publishing Association, page 99
  2. (uncountable) The condition or fact of suffering or anguish especially mental, as opposed to pleasure; torment; distress
    • In the final analysis, pain is a fact of life.
    • The pain of departure was difficult to bear.
  3. (countable) An annoying person or thing.
    • Your mother is a right pain.
    • Today is match day, Grimsby Town are at home, and the ground is walking distance from New Clee station. So, visiting football supporters coming by train have to change at Grimsby Town [station]. That's a real pain.2024 April 17, “Rural railways: do they deliver?”, in RAIL, number 1007, page 58
  4. (dated, uncountable) Suffering inflicted as punishment or penalty.
    • You may not leave this room on pain of death.
    • We will, by way of mulct or pain, lay it upon him.1629, Francis Bacon, An Advertisement Touching a Holy War
  5. (in plural) Labour; effort; great care or trouble taken in doing something.
    • The transition to N.E.P. was due to the catastrophic failure of this policy-a failure predicted by the Mensheviks and S.R.s, who for their pains had been denounced, imprisoned, and murdered as henchmen of the White Guards.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozwój (in...
    Synonyms:
    effort, exertion, pains, wark, work

Verb

pain (third-person singular simple present pains, present participle paining, simple past and past participle pained)

  1. (transitive) To hurt; to put to bodily uneasiness or anguish; to afflict with uneasy sensations of any degree of intensity; to torment; to torture.
    • The wound pained him.
  2. (transitive) To render uneasy in mind; to disquiet; to distress; to grieve.
    • It pains me to say that I must let you go.
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To inflict suffering upon as a penalty; to punish.
  4. (dated, intransitive) To hurt; to feel painful.
    • My infernal thumb pains yet like the very devil.1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London
  5. (India, intransitive) To feel pain; to hurt.
    • 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.2001, Sarah Caldwell, quoting C. Choondal, “Waves of Beauty, Rivers of Blood: Constructing the Goddess in Kerala”, in Tracy Pintchman, editor, Seeking Mahādevī: Constructing the Identities of the...

Noun (2)

pain (plural pains)

  1. (obsolete) Any of various breads stuffed with a filling.
    • gammon pain; Spanish pain

Noun (3) capitalized: PAIN

PAIN (plural PAINs or PAINS)

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of pan-assay interference compound.

Proper noun capitalized: Pain

Pain (plural Pains)

  1. A surname.

pain meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

pain in Hindi

ache or bodily suffering
दर्द dard, पीड़ा pīṛā, व्यथा vyathā
suffering or anguish, especially mental
दुःख duḥkh, दुख dukh

pain in Tamil

ache or bodily suffering
வலி vali, வேதனை vētaṉai, நோவு nōvu
suffering or anguish, especially mental
வேதனை vētaṉai

pain in Marathi

ache or bodily suffering
वेदना vednā, दुखणे dukhṇe

pain in Urdu

ache or bodily suffering
دَرْد dard, پِیڑا pīṛā
suffering or anguish, especially mental
دُکھ dukh
More languagesFewer languages
pain in Bengali
ব্যথা bêtha
pain in Telugu
నొప్పి noppi, అనుభవించుట anubhaviñcuṭa
pain in Malayalam
വേദന vēdana
pain in Kannada
ನೋವು nōvu, ಬೇನೆ bēne
pain in Punjabi
ਦਰਦ darad, ਦੁੱਖ dukkha, ਪੀੜ pīṛ, ਵੇਦਨ vedan
pain in Gujarati
પીડા pīḍā
pain in Odia
ପିଠ piṭha, କ୍ଳେଶ kḷeśa
pain in Sanskrit
पीडा pīḍā, व्यथा vyathā, बाधा bādhā, दुःख duḥkha
pain in Sinhala
වේදනාව wēdanāwa
pain in Assamese
বিষ bix, বিষা bixa
pain in Nepali
पीडा pīḍā, दुख dukh
pain in Pashto
درد dard, دړد daṛd
pain in Tagalog
sakit, pananakit, hinanakit, sakit sa ulo
pain in Arabic
أَلَم ʔalam, وَجَع wajaʕ, ألم ʔalam, آلَمَ ʔālama
pain in Malay
sakit
pain in Indonesian
nyeri, sakit
pain in Persian
دَرْد dard
pain in Thai
ความเจ็บ kwaam-jèp
pain in Vietnamese
đau, sự đau đớn, khổ
pain in Myanmar
ဝေဒနာ weda.na, ဒုက္ခ dukhka.
Sindhi
سور sor

Examples of pain in a sentence

  • He was all bent over complaining of pains in the abdomen.
  • He looked at the bottle of pain pills, wondering if they would work.
  • Aspirin is a drug that reduces pain, acts against inflammation and lowers body temperature.

All 40 example sentences with pain

Synonyms of pain

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

2 more antonymsFewer antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of pain

Forms of pain

Noun
pluralpains
pluralPAINs
pluralPAINS
alternative form (obsolete)paine
Verb
third-person singular presentpains
present participlepaining
past participlepained
pastpained
Proper noun
pluralPains

Past tense of pain: pained

Plural of pain: pains

Origin of pain

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”), from Proto-Hellenic *kʷoinā́, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷoynéh₂ (“payment”) (whence also Proto-Slavic *cěnà (“price”)). 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).

From Middle English payn (“a kind of pie with a soft crust”), from Old French pain (“bread”).

Backformation from pain (“pain in the ass”)

Words formed from pain

Phrases with pain

16 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with pain

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about pain

What does pain mean?
Pain means 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.
What is pain in Hindi?
Pain in Hindi is दर्द (dard), पीड़ा (pīṛā), व्यथा (vyathā). See Pain meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is pain?
Pain can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce pain?
Pain is pronounced /ˈpeɪ̯n/ (UK).
What is the plural of pain?
The plural of pain is pains.

Words near pain in the dictionary

  1. Paily
  2. paime
  3. paiment
  4. Paimon
  5. Paimpol
  6. pain
  7. pain and suffering
  8. pain au chocolat
  9. pain aux raisins
  10. pain compliance
  11. pain d'épice

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pain (page history and authors); PAIN (page history and authors); Pain (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-us-pain.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Back ache-pain.wav.

Cite this entry: “pain.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pain. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.