The meaning of PAINFUL is feeling or giving pain. How to use painful in a sentence.

Define painful. painful synonyms, painful pronunciation, painful translation, English dictionary definition of painful. adj. 1. Full of or giving pain: a painful shoulder; painful walking.

PAINFUL definition: 1. causing emotional or physical pain: 2. If something is painful to watch or listen to, it is so…. Learn more.

Find 1,722 synonyms for painful and other similar words that you can use instead based on 7 separate contexts from our thesaurus.

If something such as an illness, injury, or operation is painful, it causes you a lot of physical pain. ...a painful back injury. Sunburn is painful and potentially dangerous.

Definition of painful adjective in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.

Painful definition: affected with, causing, or characterized by pain.. See examples of PAINFUL used in a sentence.

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025 pain•ful (pān′ fəl), adj. affected with, causing, or characterized by pain: a painful wound; a painful night; a …

Synonyms for PAINFUL: sore, aching, hurting, damaging, hurtful, injurious, swollen, nasty; Antonyms of PAINFUL: painless, helping, remedial, healing, indolent, curative, sweet, gratifying

Find 526 different ways to say PAINFUL, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at Thesaurus.com.