PAINFULLY

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Unpleasantly

Example:

his ignorance was painfully obvious

Synonyms:

distressingly; painfully

Classified under:

Adverbs

Pertainym:

painful (exceptionally bad or displeasing)

Sense 2

Meaning:

In or as if in pain

Example:

sorely wounded

Synonyms:

painfully; sorely

Classified under:

Adverbs

Antonym:

painlessly (without pain)

Pertainym:

painful (causing physical or psychological pain)

Credits

Context examples:

Here and there we passed Cszeks and Slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed that goitre was painfully prevalent.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

She wished it might be possible for her to avoid ever seeing Captain Wentworth at the Hall: those rooms had witnessed former meetings which would be brought too painfully before her; but she was yet more anxious for the possibility of Lady Russell and Captain Wentworth never meeting anywhere.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Two hours of cursing and exertion got the harnesses into shape, and the wound-stiffened team was under way, struggling painfully over the hardest part of the trail they had yet encountered, and for that matter, the hardest between them and Dawson.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

How many times I went up and down the street, and round the square—painfully aware of being a much better answer to the old riddle than the original one—before I could persuade myself to go up the steps and knock, is no matter now.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Disappointed, however, and vexed as she was, and sometimes displeased with his uncertain behaviour to herself, she was very well disposed on the whole to regard his actions with all the candid allowances and generous qualifications, which had been rather more painfully extorted from her, for Willoughby's service, by her mother.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

The labours I endured were no longer to be alleviated by the bright sun or gentle breezes of spring; all joy was but a mockery which insulted my desolate state and made me feel more painfully that I was not made for the enjoyment of pleasure.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I was painfully aware of my likeness to a scarecrow.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He was confused, painfully conscious of his inarticulateness.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

They limped painfully down the bank, and once the foremost of the two men staggered among the rough-strewn rocks.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

The man early discovered White Fang's susceptibility to laughter, and made it a point after painfully tricking him, to laugh at him.