different between painful vs afflictive

English

Alternative forms

• painfull (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle English paynful, peinful, peynful, paynefull, peynefull, equivalent to pain +? -ful. Compare Danish pinefuld (“painful”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?pe?n.f?l/

Adjective

painful (comparative painfuller or more painful, superlative painfullest or most painful)

1. Causing pain or distress, either physical or mental. [from 14th c.]
2. Afflicted or suffering with pain (of a body part or, formerly, of a person). [from 15th c.]
3. Requiring effort or labor; difficult, laborious. [from 15th c.]
4. (now rare) Painstaking; careful; industrious. [from 16th c.]
   • 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, in Kupperman 1988, p. 142:

     The men bestow their times in fishing, hunting, warres, and such manlike exercises, scorning to be seene in any woman-like exercise, which is the cause that the women be very painefull, and the men often idle.

   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, Book 2, Ch. 2

     For twenty generations, here was the earthly arena where painful living men worked out their life-wrestle

5. (informal) Very bad, poor.

   His violin playing is painful.

Synonyms

• (full of pain): doleful, sorrowful, smartful, irksome, annoying
• (requiring labor or toil): laborious, exerting

Antonyms

• (causing pain): painless, painfree

Derived terms

• painfully
• painfulness

Translations

English

Etymology

afflict +? -ive

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -?kt?v

Adjective

afflictive (comparative more afflictive, superlative most afflictive)

1. That causes physical or mental pain.
   • 1716, Thomas Browne, Christian Morals, 2nd edition edited by Samuel Johnson, London: J. Payne, 1756, Part I, p. 44,^[1]

     […] we consider not sufficiently the good of evils, nor fairly compute the mercies of PROVIDENCE in things afflictive at first hand.

   • 1718, Alexander Pope (translator), The Iliad of Homer, London: Bernard Lintot, Volume 4, Book 14, p. 96,^[2]

     All this from Jove’s afflictive Hand we bear:

     Who, far from Argos, wills our Ruin here.

   • 1718, Matthew Prior “Henry and Emma” in Poems on Several Occasions, London: Jacob Tonson, p. 229,^[3]

     But canst Thou, tender Maid, canst Thou sustain

     Afflictive Want, or Hunger’s pressing Pain?

   • 1847, Anne Brontë (pseudonym Acton Bell), Agnes Grey, Chapter 3,^[4]

     In my childhood I could not imagine a more afflictive punishment than for my mother to refuse to kiss me at night: the very idea was terrible.

Derived terms

• afflictively

Translations

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a.flik.tiv/
• Homophone: afflictives

Adjective

afflictive

1. feminine singular of afflictif