Painful vs Distress - What's the difference?
painful | distress |
Causing pain or distress, either physical or mental.
Afflicted or suffering with pain (of a body part or, formerly, of a person).
Requiring effort or labor; difficult, laborious.
* 1624 , John Smith, Generall Historie , in Kupperman 1988, p. 142:
* 1843 , , Book 2, Ch. 2
(Cause of) discomfort.
* {{quote-book
, year=1833
, author=John Trusler
, title=The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings
, chapter=8
Serious danger.
* {{quote-book
, year=1719
, author=Daniel Defoe
, title=Robinson Crusoe
, chapter=13
* {{quote-book
, year=1759
, author=Voltaire
, title=Candide
, chapter=42
(legal) A seizing of property without legal process to force payment of a debt.
(legal) The thing taken by distraining; that which is seized to procure satisfaction.
* Spenser
* Blackstone
To cause strain or anxiety to someone.
* {{quote-book
, year=1827
, author=Stendhal
, title=Armance
, chapter=31
(legal) To retain someone’s property against the payment of a debt; to distrain.
*
To treat an object, such as an antique, to give it an appearance of age.
As an adjective painful
is causing pain or distress, either physical or mental.As a noun distress is
(cause of) discomfort.As a verb distress is
to cause strain or anxiety to someone.painful
English
(wikipedia painful)Alternative forms
* painfull (archaic)Adjective
(en-adj)- 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.
- For twenty generations, here was the earthly arena where painful living men worked out their life-wrestle
Synonyms
* (full of pain) doleful, sorrowful, irksome, annoying * (requiring labor or toil) laborious, exertingAntonyms
* (causing pain) painless, painfreeDerived terms
* painfully * painfulnessdistress
English
Noun
(-)citation, passage=To heighten his distress , he is approached by his wife, and bitterly upbraided for his perfidy in concealing from her his former connexions (with that unhappy girl who is here present with her child, the innocent offspring of her amours, fainting at the sight of his misfortunes, being unable to relieve him farther), and plunging her into those difficulties she never shall be able to surmount.}}
citation, passage=I immediately considered that this must be some ship in distress , and that they had some comrade, or some other ship in company, and fired these gun for signals of distress, and to obtain help.}}
citation, passage=At length they perceived a little cottage; two persons in the decline of life dwelt in this desert, who were always ready to give every assistance in their power to their fellow-creatures in distress .}}
- If he were not paid, he would straight go and take a distress of goods and cattle.
- The distress thus taken must be proportioned to the thing distrained for.
Verb
(es)citation, passage=She respects me, no doubt, but has no longer any passionate feeling for me, and my death will distress her without plunging her in despair.}}
- She distressed the new media cabinet so that it fit with the other furniture in the room.