1
: feeling pain : hurt
2
: expressing or involving pain
a pained expression
with pained surprise

Examples of pained in a Sentence

She wore a pained expression on her face. He truly looked pained when he heard the news.
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
But for a man of few words in front of an audience, his music is ripe with satire and vulnerability, and his live performance is riddled with excessive performances of emotion, from his pained facial expressions, hand gestures and smooth dance moves. Alyssa Goldberg, USA TODAY, 27 Feb. 2025 By Raja Shehadeh Save In this short, pained meditation, Shehadeh, a renowned Palestinian writer and human rights advocate, puzzles over the conflict that has defined his life. Foreign Affairs, 25 Feb. 2025 The most balanced model, similarly adept at detecting pained and not-pained goats, was trained on four fifths of the frames, fine-tuned using the remaining fifth and tested on videos of two additional goats. Lucy Tu, Scientific American, 7 Feb. 2025 In the hospital bed, his body is rigid, his voice is unaffected, and his glower is unblinking; in the CIA office days later, as he’s being applauded for his successes and his return to work, his smile looks pained. Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 24 Jan. 2025 See All Example Sentences for pained

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of pained was in the 14th century

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Pained.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pained. Accessed 15 Mar. 2025.

More from Merriam-Webster on pained

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!