painstaking

Etymology

It is formed from English pain + -s + taking.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The first part is the plural of the noun in the sense "exertion, effort",^[6] which is from Old French peine (“difficulty, woe, suffering, punishment”), from Latin poena (“punishment, penalty”).^[6] The second is the gerund of the verb take,^[5] from Old English tacan and a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse taka.^[6] The adjective was made after the noun and painstaker.^[2] Compare the earlier compound pain taking.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The taking of pains; careful and attentive effort: 1545, in a printer's will, in the OED.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the noun to 1538,^[5] Etymonline to the 1550s, as paynes taking,^[6] and Dictionary.com to 1550–60.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The idiom is older: to take the peyn of laboure, to work hard, is recorded from the mid-15th century,^[6] and the older compound pain taking, first meaning suffering or penance (before 1382–1531), meant "taking of pains" from 1531 to 1586.^[2] The form with the plural appears beside it from 1545, and painstaker, a person who takes pains, follows in 1595.^[2] The adjective came a century later, first of a person, in the Earl of Roscommon's poems before 1685, and then of a piece of work, in Vanbrugh's The Relapse (1697).^[2] Etymonline dates it to the 1690s and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to about 1685.^[6][5] Johnson (1755) defines the adjective simply as "laborious; industrious".^[7] The Shorter Oxford marks the noun as now rare.^[4]

Timeline

• 1531 – pain taking, the taking of pains (obsolete by 1586).^[2]
• 1545 – noun, painstaking, careful and attentive effort.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates it to 1538.^[5]
• 1595 – painstaker, a person who takes pains.^[2]
• before 1685 – adjective, of a person, careful and diligent.^[2][5]
• 1697 – adjective, of work, done with great care.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a person, taking great care; diligent and assiduous: a painstaking restorer of old clocks.^[2][8][5]
2. Of work, done with great care and close attention to detail; thorough: years of painstaking research into parish records.^[2][8][5]

Noun

1. (rare) The taking of pains; careful, attentive effort.^[2][5][4]

Word family

• painstakingly
• painstakingness

Related words

• pain
• take
• taking
• painstaker

Usage notes

Dictionary.com sets it apart from two near-synonyms: a painstaking person works steadily at the details to reach an aim, careful is the broader word for wanting to do a job well, and meticulous goes further, to a near-obsessive fear of mistakes over the tiniest points.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins