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”).

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).

• paine (obsolete)

• enPR: pān, IPA^(key): /peɪn/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (UK)

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• Rhymes: -eɪn
• Homophone: pane

pain (countable and uncountable, plural pains)

1. (countable and uncountable) 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. (now usually in the plural) The pangs or sufferings of childbirth, caused by contractions of the uterus.
      • 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:

        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.

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.

   • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto XIV, page 22:

     And I should tell him all my pain,
     ⁠And how my life had droop’d of late,
     ⁠And he should sorrow o’er my state
     And marvel what possess’d my brain; […]

3. (countable, from pain in the neck) An annoying person or thing.

   Your mother is a right pain.

   • 2024 April 17, “Rural railways: do they deliver?”, in RAIL, number 1007, page 58:

     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.

4. (uncountable, dated) Suffering inflicted as punishment or penalty.

   You may not leave this room on pain of death.

   • 1629, Francis Bacon, An Advertisement Touching a Holy War:

     We will, by way of mulct or pain, lay it upon him.

   • 1690, [John] Dryden, Don Sebastian, King of Portugal: […], London: […] Jo. Hindmarsh, […], →OCLC, Act IV, page 105:

     Seb[astian]. […] [M]y duty, then, / To interpoſe; on pain of my diſpleasure, / Betwixt your Swords[.] / Dor[ax]. On pain of Infamy / He ſhould have diſobey'd.

5. (chiefly in the plural) Labour; effort; great care or trouble taken in doing something.

• (an annoying person or thing): pest
• See also Thesaurus:pain

• pleasure

• agony
• anguish
• pang
• neuropathic pain
• nociceptive pain
• phantom pain
• psychogenic pain

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. (transitive, obsolete) To inflict suffering upon as a penalty; to punish.
4. (intransitive, India) To feel pain; to hurt.

   Please help me, I am paining hard.

   • 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 Hindu Great Goddess, page 104:

     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.

   • 2009, Nithyananda Paramahamsa, Bliss Is the Goal and the Path, page 124:

     A lady visited the doctor, a general physician and complained of a lot of pain.
     The doctor asked her where she experienced pain.
     The lady touched her right knee and said, 'It is paining here doctor.'
     Then she touched her stomach and said, 'It is paining here too doctor.'

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

pain (plural pains)

1. (obsolete, cooking) Any of various breads stuffed with a filling.

   gammon pain; Spanish pain

• “pain”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “pain”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “pain”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• APNI, NIPA, PANI, nipa, pian, pina, piña

From Proto-Oceanic *papine, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *babinahi, from Proto-Austronesian *bahi.

pain

1. woman

• Malcolm Ross, Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia, Pacific Linguistics, series C-98 (1988)

pain

1. inflection of pai:
   1. genitive singular
   2. instructive plural

• apin, pani, pian

Inherited from Middle French pain, from Old French pain, from Latin pānem.

• IPA^(key): /pɛ̃/

• Audio (FR)

  (file)

• Audio (Avignon)

  (file)

• Homophones: pains, peins, peint, peints, pin, pins

pain m (plural pains)

1. bread
2. piece of bread
3. food
   • 1830 Juvénal, Les Satires, translated into French verse by Barré de Jallais

     Sa nudité déplaît, sa détresse importune, / Et tous les jours, hélas ! à tout le monde en vain / Il demande une chambre, un habit et du pain.

     His nudity embarrasses, his distress importunes, / And every day, alas! from everyone in vain / He asks for a bedroom, clothes and food.

4. bread-and-butter needs, basic sustenance; breadwinner
   • 1830 Juvénal, Les Satires, translated into French verse by Barré de Jallais

     Ce danseur, déployant une jambe soigneuse / À tenir l’équilibre, et la corde douteuse, / Trouve dans son talent des habits et du pain, / Et son art lui subjugue et le froid et la faim : […]

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

5. (informal) punch (a hit with the fist)
   • 2006, Maurice Léger, Moi, Antoinette Védrines, thanatopractrice et pilier de rugby, Publibook:

     J’étais redescendue dare-dare, bien décidée à lui mettre un pain dans la tronche.

     I had gone back down quickly, determined to give him a punch in the face.

6. a block (of ice, of salt, of soap …) with the shape and size of bread
7. (slang, music) mistake during a performance (false note, forgot an intro, wrong solo, …)

• panier

• Haitian Creole: pen
• Karipúna Creole French: djipẽ
• → Farefare: pãanɛ
• ⇒ Khmer: នំប៉័ង (num pang)
• → Xârâcùù: pêê

• “pain”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• pina

From Proto-Oceanic *papine, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *babinahi, from Proto-Austronesian *bahi.

pain

1. woman

• Malcolm Ross, Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia, Pacific Linguistics, series C-98 (1988)
• ABVD
• Gedaged Bible translation, Genesis 1:27: Tamol pain mai inaulak.

From Proto-Oceanic *papine, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *babinahi, from Proto-Austronesian *bahi.

pain

1. woman

• Malcolm Ross, Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia, Pacific Linguistics, series C-98 (1988)

Inherited from Old French pain, from Latin pānis, pānem.

pain m (plural pains)

1. bread

• French: pain (see there for further descendants)

• pain on Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330–1500) (in French)

• pôin (Guernsey)

From Old French pain.

• Audio (Jersey)

  (file)

pain m (plural pains)

1. (Jersey) bread

• gângne-pain (“breadwinner”)
• pain d'êpice (“gingerbread”)
• p'tit pain (“roll”)

Inherited from Latin pānis, pānem.

pain oblique singular, m (oblique plural painz, nominative singular painz, nominative plural pain)

1. bread

• Middle French: pain
  • French: pain (see there for further descendants)
• Norman: pain, pôin
• Walloon: pwin, pan
• → Middle English: payn, pain, paine, payn, pein
  • English: pain (obsolete)

From Proto-Oceanic *papine, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *babinahi, from Proto-Austronesian *bahi.

pain

1. woman

• Malcolm Ross, Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia, Pacific Linguistics, series C-98 (1988)

From Proto-Austronesian *paən (cf. Bikol Central paon).

• IPA^(key): /ˈpaʔin/, [ˈpa.ʔɪn]
• Hyphenation: pa‧in

pain (Baybayin spelling ᜉᜁᜈ᜔)

1. bait (for catching fish, rats, etc.)
2. decoy
3. nest egg

• “pain”, in Pambansang Diksiyonaryo | Diksiyonaryo.ph, Manila, 2018

From Proto-Oceanic *papine, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *babinahi, from Proto-Austronesian *bahi.

pain

1. woman

• Malcolm Ross, Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia, Pacific Linguistics, series C-98 (1988)