Adjacent Words

Painfulness definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

PA'INFULNESS, n. Uneasiness or distress of body.
1. Affliction; sorrow; grief; disquietude or distress of mind.
2. Laborious effort or diligence; toil.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: emotional distress; a fundamental feeling that people try to avoid; "the pain of loneliness" [syn: pain, painfulness] [ant: pleasance, pleasure]
2: the quality of being painful; "she feared the painfulness of childbirth" [syn: painfulness, distressingness]

Merriam Webster's

noun see painful

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Painful Pain"ful, a. 1. Full of pain; causing uneasiness or distress, either physical or mental; afflictive; disquieting; distressing. --Addison. 2. Requiring labor or toil; difficult; executed with laborious effort; as a painful service; a painful march. 3. Painstaking; careful; industrious. [Obs.] --Fuller. A very painful person, and a great clerk. --Jer. Taylor. Nor must the painful husbandman be tired. --Dryden. Syn: Disquieting; troublesome; afflictive; distressing; grievous; laborious; toilsome; difficult; arduous. -- Pain"ful*ly, adv. -- Pain"ful*ness, n.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

pan'-fool-nes (mochthos): In the summary of his missionary labors in 2Co 11:27 the King James Version, Paul uses this word. The Revised Version (British and American) renders it "travail," which probably now expresses its meaning more closely, as in modern usage "painfulness" is usually restricted to the condition of actual soreness or suffering, although we still use "painstaking" in the sense of careful labor. The Greek word is used for toil or excessive anxiety, as in Euripides (Medea, 126), where it refers to that care for her children which she had lost in her madness. Tyndale uses "painfulness" in 1 Joh 4:18 as the translation of kolasis, which the King James Version renders "torment" and the Revised Version (British and American) "punishment."

Alexander Macalister