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PAINFULNESS
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The quality of being painful
Example:
she feared the painfulness of childbirth
Synonyms:
distressingness; painfulness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
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)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Emotional distress; a fundamental feeling that people try to avoid
Example:
the pain of loneliness
Synonyms:
pain; painfulness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting feelings and emotions
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)
