- pain
- pain n1 Pain, ache, pang, throe, twinge, stitch are comparable when they mean a bodily sensation that causes acute discomfort or suffering.Pain may range in its application from a sensation that makes one uneasily aware of some bodily disturbance or injury to a sensation resulting from severe injuries or disease and of agonizing intensity; from a sensation that is purely local to one that affects the entire body{
a pain in the finger
}{chest pains
}{his body was wracked with pain
}More technically, pain denotes a usually unpleasant sensation that results from a noxious stimulus to skin or tissues and leads to avoiding reactions.An ache is a steady, dull, and often generalized pain that is frequently associated with some underlying disorder{the ache of an abscessed tooth
}{backache that accompanies kidney disease
}A pang is a sharp, sudden, and usually transitory pain of great intensity, especially one that recurs in spasms{pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travaileth— Isa 21:3
}{attacking them [fleas] was a waste of time, and unless a particularly savage pang forced you into action, you just sat and let yourself be devoured— Stewart
}A throe is a pang characteristic of a process (as of labor in childbirth). Because of its association with labor the term usually designates a violent and convulsive, as well as a recurrent pain{in the throes of violent retching
}{the throes of a mortal and painful disorder— Scott
}A twinge is a momentary shooting or darting pain, especially one causing muscular contraction or twitching; it is sometimes regarded as a premonitory symptom{shrugged off twinges and creakings like mine as something quite to be expected in their early fifties— E. M. Stem
}{feel a twinge in the region of the heart
}Stitch differs from twinge in suggesting something that runs through a part of a body (usually a muscle) like a piercing needle{ran until he got a stitch in the side
}All of these words except the last designate also mental suffering.Pain commonly suggests sorrow (as for something lost or unattainable){my craving to hear from her was at times a gnawing pain— Kenneth Roberts
}Ache usually implies suffering that must be endured or longing not likely to be appeased{there was an ache in his heart like the farewell to a dear woman— Steinbeck
}{know the ache of loneliness
}Pang suggests a sudden sharp access of a painful emotion{sharp pangs of envy
}{pangs of remorse
}{the next time I ran away just the same, and suffered the most ghastly pangs of itav— John Reed
}{statements . . . made unhesitatingly, with no visible pangs of conscience— Sanders
}Throe presupposes the existence of mental agony and designates one of the recurrent spasms that characterize the state of mind{fierce maternal passion . . . was now bowing her still lower, in the throes of a bitter renunciation— Wharton
}Twinge suggests less poignancy than pang but often connotes compunction{twinges of conscience
}{too painfully preoccupied to feel a twinge of self-reproach at this undeserved praise— George Eliot
}{shot down his victims without shadow of provocation and who probably never felt a twinge of remorse— Ghent
}2 in plural form
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
