pain in the ass
"pain-in-the-ass" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pain in the ass” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Something or someone that causes discomfort, frustration, or annoyance.
Corpus desk
Index EN-pain-in-the-ass · pain in the ass · English
pain in the ass · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pain in the ass |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “pain in the ass” in English
Rare enough to double-check
pain in the ass is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for pain in the ass in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Dysphemistically modelled after pain in the neck. First attested in the early to mid-20th century. The correct English form is pain in the ass, spelled P-A-I-N- -I-N- -T-H-E- -A-S-S.
Definition
- 1Something or someone that causes discomfort, frustration, or annoyance.
- 2Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see pain, in, the, ass.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how pain in the ass appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Strangely enough, the days I spent at this pain-in-the-ass job were some of my most memorable and valuable.
His one obligation is that, every day, he must gather $10,000 worth of items from the store – stuff he doesn’t need: electronics, nappies, pet food and so forth – and exchange them for the cash. This is both an acute pain in the ass, and the one thing that prevents him from going insane with boredom. )
Etymology
Dysphemistically modelled after pain in the neck. First attested in the early to mid-20th century.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.