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PlainSpell

pain

/ˈpeɪ̯n/noun, verb

pain is spelled P-A-I-N: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 107 times per million words in written English, the 996th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “pain vs pane” about 30 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, pain means “An ache or bodily suffering, or an instance of this; an unpleasant sensation, resulting from a derangement of functions, disease, or injury by…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of pain is pains.

How many letters and syllables are in pain?

Letters4: P-A-I-N
Syllables1
In writing107 times per million words; the 996th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Sounds like
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is pain?

Pain appears 107 times per million words in written English, the 996th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce pain?

  • US /ˈpeɪ̯n/
  • US [ˈpʰeɪ̯n]
  • Australia /ˈpæɪ̯n/

Pain has one syllable.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-pain.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Back_ache-pain.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with pain

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

pain vs pane30 G

Sounds like: pane (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with pain?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as pain from its last stressed vowel (/eɪn/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: pina, pian, nipa.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of pain

  • pains plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • paining participle, present
  • pained participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does pain mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    An ache or bodily suffering, or an instance of this; an unpleasant sensation, resulting from a derangement of functions, disease, or injury by violence; hurt.

    The greatest difficulty lies in treating patients with chronic pain.

  2. 2

    The pangs or sufferings of childbirth, caused by contractions of the uterus.

  3. 3

    The condition or fact of suffering or anguish especially mental, as opposed to pleasure; torment; distress

    In the final analysis, pain is a fact of life.

  4. 4

    An annoying person or thing.

    Your mother is a right pain.

  5. 5

    datedSuffering inflicted as punishment or penalty.

    You may not leave this room on pain of death.

  6. 6

    Labour; effort; great care or trouble taken in doing something.

  7. 7

    obsoleteAny of various breads stuffed with a filling.

    gammon pain; Spanish pain

verb

  1. 1

    To hurt; to put to bodily uneasiness or anguish; to afflict with uneasy sensations of any degree of intensity; to torment; to torture.

    The wound pained him.

  2. 2

    To render uneasy in mind; to disquiet; to distress; to grieve.

    It pains me to say that I must let you go.

  3. 3

    obsoleteTo inflict suffering upon as a penalty; to punish.

  4. 4

    datedTo hurt; to feel painful.

  5. 5

    IndiaTo feel pain; to hurt.

    Please help me: I am paining hard.

noun

as PAIN
  1. 1

    Acronym of pan-assay interference compound.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate pain?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of pain: Px.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Pain in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchdouleur, mal (ache or bodily suffering), peine (suffering or anguish, especially mental), casse-pied, casse-couilles (annoying person or thing), faire de la peine (to render uneasy in mind, to grieve)
GermanSchmerz (ache or bodily suffering), schmerzen (to hurt; to put to bodily uneasiness or anguish)
Portuguesedor (ache or bodily suffering), mala, chato (annoying person or thing), doer em, machucar (to hurt; to put to bodily uneasiness or anguish), pena (suffering as punishment)
Spanishdolor (ache or bodily suffering), pena, calvario (suffering or anguish, especially mental), coña (annoying person or thing), apenar, doler (to hurt; to put to bodily uneasiness or anguish)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does pain come from?

From Middle English peyne, payne, from Old French and Anglo-Norman peine, paine, from Latin poena (“punishment, pain”), from Ancient Greek ποινή (poinḗ, “bloodmoney, weregild, fine, price paid, penalty”), from Proto-Hellenic *kʷoinā́, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷoynéh₂ (“payment”) (whence also Proto-Slavic *cěnà (“price”)). Doublet of peine. Compare Danish pine, Norwegian Bokmål pine, German Pein, Dutch pijn, Afrikaans pyn. See also pine (the verb). Partly displaced native Old English sār (whence Modern English sore).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after pain