Painfully

How to spell painfully

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce painfully

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does painfully mean?

1. adverbIn a way that causes physical or emotional pain, or to an extent that is distressingly noticeable.

Painfully in a sentence

• The report made it painfully clear that the project was over budget.

• He limped painfully across the car park after the injury.

Where does painfully come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adverb is built on the noun 'pain', which came into English in the 1200s from Old French 'peine', meaning suffering or punishment. That French word descended from the Latin 'poena', which literally meant a penalty or punishment imposed for wrongdoing, the same root that gives us 'penalty' and 'punish'. The adjective 'painful' formed in late Middle English by adding the native suffix '-ful', meaning 'full of', and the adverb 'painfully' followed by adding '-ly'. The spelling trap is that 'painful' keeps only one 'l' (the suffix is '-ful', not '-full'), and the second 'l' appears only when the adverbial '-ly' is attached, giving the doubled 'lly' ending of 'painfully'.

How the word is built

• pain (from Latin poena: penalty, punishment)
• -ful (full of)
• -ly (adverb-forming suffix)