Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In a painful manner.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb In a painful manner; as if in pain.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adverb in or as if in pain
  • adverb unpleasantly

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

painful +‎ -ly

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Examples

  • Supported by the starchitects, the media's so-called 'architectural Bert de Muynck is an architect, writer and director of movingcities. org He lives and works in Beijing, China. critics', a term painfully and mistakenly used by those who occasionally write about buildings and architects, have made a 'good cop, bad cop' deal with the city of Beijing.

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2008

  • But today Americans are searching desperately for employment in painfully high numbers.

    Richard Albert: Why The President Wins If The Democrats Lose Richard Albert 2010

  • I started this reluctantly this morning because I thought it would contain painfully personal connections (MiL had early-onset Alzheimer's), and it did, and because I thought it would be too short (and it was).

    Reader reviews of Still Alice by Lisa Genova. 2009

  • “It is a shame,” I heard Johnson growling in painfully slow and correct English.

    Chapter 6 2010

  • I remain painfully aware that gestures of appreciation offered here will mean little to the individuals who merit them most: the women and men of Magude district, and most especially of Facazisse, who tolerated my strange ways, who opened their homes and their hearts to me, and who will not likely ever see or read this product of our combined efforts.

    Where Women Make History: Gendered Tellings of Community and Change in Magude, Mozambique 2005

  • Although the idea of him slowly wasting away painfully is more appealing to me.

    Balloon Juice » 2004 » October 2004

  • Dad (lifting himself painfully from the floor): If you people had just done what I told you to do … things would have turned out OK.

    Archive 2003-02-01 Ed 2003

  • They saw the pillars of society pulled dowry by an unseen Samson and watched the victims crawling painfully from the ruins.

    Inflation and War Finance 1941

  • "It is a shame," I heard Johnson growling in painfully slow and correct English.

    Chapter 6 1904

  • I listened, but caught no tone of her sharp voice, which usually came painfully from the back regions of the house; it would ill have harmonized with the sweet autumn day and the robin's song.

    John Halifax, Gentleman 1897

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