[syn: painfulness, distressingness]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Painful \Pain"ful\, a.
1. Full of pain; causing uneasiness or distress, either
physical or mental; afflictive; disquieting; distressing.
--Addison.
[1913 Webster]
2. Requiring labor or toil; difficult; executed with
laborious effort; as a painful service; a painful march.
[1913 Webster]
3. Painstaking; careful; industrious. [Obs.] --Fuller.
[1913 Webster]
A very painful person, and a great clerk. --Jer.
Taylor.
[1913 Webster]
Nor must the painful husbandman be tired. --Dryden.
[1913 Webster]
Syn: Disquieting; troublesome; afflictive; distressing;
grievous; laborious; toilsome; difficult; arduous.
[1913 Webster] -- Pain"ful*ly, adv. --
Pain"ful*ness, n.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
painfulness \pain"ful*ness\ n.
Emotional distress; a fundamental feeling that people try to
avoid.
Syn: pain.
[WordNet 1.5]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
painfulness
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]