different between painful vs searing

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

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -??r??

Adjective

searing

1. very hot; blistering or boiling
2. (of a pain) having a sensation of intense sudden heat

Noun

searing (plural searings)

1. action of the verb to sear

   • he was raw with the searings of the fire

   • 1970, Ebony (volume 25, number 10, August 1970, page 156)

     It was the time of new searings of black identity deep within the psyche of the black community.

2. cooking food quickly at high temperature

Verb

searing

1. present participle of sear

Anagrams

• Angries, Gainers, Gearins, Reagins, earings, erasing, gainers, inrages, raignes, reagins, regains, regians, reginas, seringa