Definition of "painful"

painful

/ˈpeɪn.fəl/

adjective
comparative painfuller or more painful, superlative painfullest or most painful
1. Causing pain or distress, either physical or mental.
2. Afflicted or suffering with pain (of a body part or, formerly, of a person).
3. Requiring effort or labor; difficult, laborious.
4. (now rare) Painstaking; careful; industrious.
  Quotations
  The men bestow their times in fishing, hunting, warres, and such manlike exercises, scorning to be seene in any woman-like exercise, which is the cause that the women be very painefull, and the men often idle.
  1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, Kupperman, published 1988, page 142
  For twenty generations, here was the earthly arena where painful living men worked out their life-wrestle
  1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, chapter 2, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, book II (The Ancient Monk)
5. (informal) Very bad, poor.