pain

Borrowed from Old French and Anglo-Norman peine, paine, from Latin poena (“punishment, pain”), from Ancient Greek ποινή (poinḗ, “bloodmoney, weregild, fine, price paid, penalty”). Compare Danish pine, German Pein, Dutch pijn, Afrikaans pyn. See also pine (the verb). Displaced native Old English sār.

• enPR: pʰān, IPA^(key): /peɪn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• 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.

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

   Your mother is a right pain.

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

   You may not leave this room on pain of death.

   • 1689, John Dryden, Don Sebastian

     Interpose, on pain of my displeasure.

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

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

5. Labour; effort; pains.

• Adjectives often used with "pain": mild, moderate, severe, intense, excruciating, debilitating, acute, chronic, sharp, dull, burning, steady, throbbing, stabbing, spasmodic, etc.

• (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.

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, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• pain in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• pain at OneLook Dictionary Search

• 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. Genitive singular form of pai.
2. Instructive plural form of pai.

• apin, pani, pian

From Old French pain, from Latin pānis, pānem, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to feed, to graze”).

• IPA^(key): /pɛ̃/

• Audio (FR)

  (file)

• Audio (Avignon)

  (file)

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

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 all the days, alas! to everyone in vain / He ask a bedroom, clothes and foods.

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 : […]

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 was redescended quickly, really steadfast to blow him a punch on his 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

• “pain” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• 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)

• pôin (Guernsey)

From Old French pain, from Latin pānis, pānem, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to feed, to graze”).

• Audio (Jersey)

  (file)

pain m (plural pains)

1. (Jersey) bread

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

From Latin pānis, pānem.

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

1. bread

• French: pain
• Norman: pain
• Walloon: pwin, pan

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

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)