as in bitterly
with feelings of bitterness or grief
painfully she recounted the difficult relationship she had with her mother
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Recent Examples of painfully
Inspired by a 2017 Los Angeles Time article about a San Gabriel Valley tragedy, director Eric Lin’s heartbreaking feature painfully reminds us of the need to get help and how mental health issues within Asian cultures need to be destigmatized.
—
Randy Myers, Mercury News, 8 Jan. 2026
By Sunday, he was gone, a mercifully swift ending to painfully slow decline.
—Scott Maxwell, The Orlando Sentinel, 8 Jan. 2026
But to many survivors, recovery still feels painfully slow.
—Melissa Gomez, Los Angeles Times, 7 Jan. 2026
O'Keeffe's Lip Repair Night Treatment If your lips are painfully cracked or chapped, this nighttime treatment means business.
—Jeaneen Russell, PEOPLE, 5 Jan. 2026
The taut scenes provide the actors with a playing field to shine individually in heated arguments, sobering moments of empathy and painfully honest talks about what comes after a life-altering event.
—Carlos Aguilar, Variety, 30 Dec. 2025
That reality became painfully clear during an atmospheric river storm in March 2023 when a levee along California’s Pajaro River failed, flooding the town of Pajaro.
—Farshid Vahedifard, The Conversation, 29 Dec. 2025
Instead, his foot swung upward and struck him painfully, sending him collapsing to the floor as colleagues nearby burst into laughter.
—Jijo Malayil, Interesting Engineering, 29 Dec. 2025
But this perception has created existential threats for Iranians—something the June attacks made painfully evident.
—Mohammad Javad Zarif, Foreign Affairs, 22 Dec. 2025
Randy Myers, Mercury News, 8 Jan. 2026
By Sunday, he was gone, a mercifully swift ending to painfully slow decline.
—Scott Maxwell, The Orlando Sentinel, 8 Jan. 2026
But to many survivors, recovery still feels painfully slow.
—Melissa Gomez, Los Angeles Times, 7 Jan. 2026
O'Keeffe's Lip Repair Night Treatment If your lips are painfully cracked or chapped, this nighttime treatment means business.
—Jeaneen Russell, PEOPLE, 5 Jan. 2026
The taut scenes provide the actors with a playing field to shine individually in heated arguments, sobering moments of empathy and painfully honest talks about what comes after a life-altering event.
—Carlos Aguilar, Variety, 30 Dec. 2025
That reality became painfully clear during an atmospheric river storm in March 2023 when a levee along California’s Pajaro River failed, flooding the town of Pajaro.
—Farshid Vahedifard, The Conversation, 29 Dec. 2025
Instead, his foot swung upward and struck him painfully, sending him collapsing to the floor as colleagues nearby burst into laughter.
—Jijo Malayil, Interesting Engineering, 29 Dec. 2025
But this perception has created existential threats for Iranians—something the June attacks made painfully evident.
—Mohammad Javad Zarif, Foreign Affairs, 22 Dec. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for painfully
Adverb
-
Ukraine battled Sunday to restore power to tens of thousands of people left without heating in bitterly cold temperatures after a week of intense Russian attacks that have brought the country’s energy infrastructure to its knees.—
Sophie Tanno,
CNN Money,
11 Jan. 2026
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The post in a bitterly cold corner of Alaska is home to approximately 350 soldiers, including those of the 49th Missile Defense Battalion, which operates 40 of the military's 44 specialized missiles designed to shoot down nuclear or other ballistic missiles targeting the United States.—
Davis Winkie,
USA Today,
8 Jan. 2026
Adverb
-
This should be, but sadly will probably not be, the line that shouldn’t have been crossed.—
Voice of the People,
New York Daily News,
7 Jan. 2026
-
Discovering the chemicals responsible for smoke taint is, sadly, only half the battle.—
Nicola Twilley,
New Yorker,
5 Jan. 2026
Adverb
-
Tarun would tease her, and my mother would look sorrowfully toward Kavitha, as if the two of them now shared some womanly burden.—
Madhuri Vijay,
New Yorker,
16 Nov. 2025
Adverb
-
Stevens said the loss of Lea’e’s father hit the team hard.—
John Maffei,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
14 Jan. 2026
-
Worse, the tariff burden is a regressive tax that falls hardest on lower-income households and small businesses with less bargaining power.—
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld,
Time,
13 Jan. 2026
Adverb
-
For their part, Democratic leaders spoke mournfully of limits, of energy shortages, of national decline, of a crisis of confidence itself.—
Rosa Lyster,
Harpers Magazine,
30 Dec. 2025
-
Based on the Dylan Thomas prose poem of the same name, published in 1952, the film lovingly and mournfully depicts the boyhood Christmastime of an old Welshman, tenderly and a tad mischievously embodied by Elliott.—
Sheldon Pearce,
New Yorker,
21 Nov. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Painfully.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/painfully. Accessed 18 Jan. 2026.
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