pained

adjective

\ ˈpānd

Definition of pained

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

His strained, pained smile at the end of every stage set is the dead giveaway. — Alissa Wilkinson, Vox, "Green Book builds a feel-good comedy atop an artifact of shameful segregation. Yikes.," 7 Jan. 2019 Kraninger sat there with a pained, flustered expression for a few seconds before the audio was turned off. — Alexia Fernández Campbell, Vox, "Elizabeth Warren confronts Trump nominee for her role in family separations," 19 July 2018 From there, the researchers mashed the results within the two cultural groups and let loose assembled facial models for orgasm and pained faces. — Beth Mole, Ars Technica, "How orgasm faces differ between people from Eastern and Western cultures," 9 Oct. 2018 As Steppenwolf artistic director Anna D. Shapiro explained to me at the time, the theater found that audiences were just too pained by the onstage presence of a real-life baby. — Chris Jones, chicagotribune.com, "When's the last time you saw a real baby on stage? A suggestion for 'Cry It Out'," 22 May 2018 But Abby remained intensely pained by the vestiges of masculinity in her face. — Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, "The Story of a Trans Woman’s Face," 12 Mar. 2018 There were twists and lifts but within the language, and that made sense to me as a poet but also maybe especially now with all the commotion in my brain, making the inside of my head such a pained, misshapen place. — Diane Mehta, Longreads, "Letter to a Dog Walking Service," 10 Feb. 2018 Swank's performance is effective but Bridget's pained earnest quality gets a little tiresome. — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, "'What They Had': Film Review | Sundance 2018," 23 Jan. 2018 England has a pained relationship with big tournaments and with its national team. — Martin Rogers, USA TODAY, "22 years later, the weight of the world is off England's shoulders," 3 July 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'pained.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.