Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913
Painful
Pain′ful (·fụl), a. 1. Full of pain; causing uneasiness or distress, either physical or mental; afflictive; disquieting; distressing. Addison.
2. Requiring labor or toil; difficult; executed with laborious effort; as a painful service; a painful march.
3. Painstaking; careful; industrious. [Obs.] Fuller.
A very painful person, and a great clerk. Jer. Taylor.
Nor must the painful husbandman be tired. Dryden.
Syn. — Disquieting; troublesome; afflictive; distressing; grievous; laborious; toilsome; difficult; arduous.
— Pain′ful·ly, adv. — Pain′ful·ness, n.