PAINFULNESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does painfulness mean? 

• PAINFULNESS (noun)
  The noun PAINFULNESS has 2 senses:

1. emotional distress; a fundamental feeling that people try to avoid

2. the quality of being painful

  Familiarity information: PAINFULNESS used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PAINFULNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Emotional distress; a fundamental feeling that people try to avoid

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

pain; painfulness

Context example:

the pain of loneliness

Hypernyms ("painfulness" is a kind of...):

feeling (the experiencing of affective and emotional states)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "painfulness"):

growing pains (emotional distress arising during adolescence)

unpleasantness (the feeling caused by disagreeable stimuli; one pole of a continuum of states of feeling)

mental anguish (sustained dull painful emotion)

hurt; suffering (feelings of mental or physical pain)

distress; hurt; suffering (psychological suffering)

Derivation:

painful (causing physical or psychological pain)

painful (causing misery or pain or distress)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The quality of being painful

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

distressingness; painfulness

Context example:

she feared the painfulness of childbirth

Hypernyms ("painfulness" is a kind of...):

quality (an essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "painfulness"):

sharpness (the quality of being keenly and painfully felt)

Derivation:

painful (causing physical discomfort)

painful (causing physical or psychological pain)

 Context examples 

“Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for ever dispelled—that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment destroyed—that my heart is no longer in the right place—and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the better. But I will not digress. “Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's influence, though exercised in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoyment. Among other havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D. V.) on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after tomorrow, at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)