How to spell painful

hear itpain·ful/'peɪnfəl/adjectivePrefixes and work

What it means: Causing discomfort or distress.

In a sentence: Getting a splinter in your finger can be painful.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as painfull or paneful.

Same family: painfully, painless, pain, painfulness, ache. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Painful comes from the noun “pain,” which entered Middle English from Old French “paine,” meaning punishment or suffering, and the suffix “-ful,” meaning ‘full of.’ So the word literally means ‘full of pain.’

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

Try spelling it

You will hear the word and a sentence. Type it and press Enter. Then four more words from the same level, so you know where you stand.

Words like this

painless · liaison · questionnaire · embarrass · electrician · conscience · transaction · destination

Spelling.School is a spaced-repetition spelling practice: ten minutes a day, every word spoken aloud, every miss explained, and every word coming back just before you would forget it. Try five words without signing up.