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Painful vs Harrowing - What's the difference?

painful | harrowing |

As adjectives the difference between painful and harrowing

is that painful is causing pain or distress, either physical or mental while harrowing is causing pain or distress.

As a verb harrowing is

.

As a noun harrowing is

the process of breaking up earth with a harrow.

painful

Alternative forms

* painfull (archaic)

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • 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:
  • 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 , , Book 2, Ch. 2
  • 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, exerting

    Antonyms

    * (causing pain) painless, painfree

    Derived terms

    * painfully * painfulness

    harrowing

    English

    Verb

    (head)
  • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Causing pain or distress.
  • * 2006 , , Concrete: Killer Smile , Dark Horse Books, cover text
  • Harrowing journeys down the dark roads of anger, violence, and madness
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-01
  • , author=Brian Hayes , title=Father of Fractals , volume=101, issue=1, page=62 , magazine= citation , passage=Toward the end of the war, Benoit was sent off on his own with forged papers; he wound up working as a horse groom at a chalet in the Loire valley. Mandelbrot describes this harrowing youth with great sangfroid.}}

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The process of breaking up earth with a harrow.
  • The field received two harrowings .