as in bitterly
with feelings of bitterness or grief
painfully she recounted the difficult relationship she had with her mother
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Recent Examples of painfully
By now, the playbook is painfully predictable.
—
Bobby Burack Outkick, FOXNews.com, 18 May 2026
The 29-year-old influencer, best known as Corporate Natalie, has built an audience of more than 2 million followers by making corporate culture feel funny, relatable and painfully accurate.
—Tereza Shkurtaj, PEOPLE, 17 May 2026
For Xi, the stakes are high, if painfully domestic.
—Vivian Salama, The Atlantic, 14 May 2026
This has most painfully affected public-school teachers.
—Jill Lepore, New Yorker, 12 May 2026
George Caulkin Inconsistency remains Newcastle’s identity For a Newcastle side who kept five clean sheets in their opening seven Premier League games, shutouts have proven painfully hard to come by throughout 2026.
—Chris Waugh, New York Times, 10 May 2026
The Connecticut Sun hoped this season would be different from its dismal record in 2025, but the team’s performance in its 2026 opener against the New York Liberty on Friday night felt painfully familiar.
—Emily Adams, Hartford Courant, 9 May 2026
The recent coverage of a cruise ship hit with a deadly hantavirus outbreak is painfully familiar to cruisers who spent days and weeks trapped in their cabins at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
—Minyvonne Burke, NBC news, 9 May 2026
Space kills with patience, and often much more painfully than the instant deaths depicted in cinema, unfolding over seconds, days, minutes, or even years.
—Alan Bradley, Space.com, 8 May 2026
Bobby Burack Outkick, FOXNews.com, 18 May 2026
The 29-year-old influencer, best known as Corporate Natalie, has built an audience of more than 2 million followers by making corporate culture feel funny, relatable and painfully accurate.
—Tereza Shkurtaj, PEOPLE, 17 May 2026
For Xi, the stakes are high, if painfully domestic.
—Vivian Salama, The Atlantic, 14 May 2026
This has most painfully affected public-school teachers.
—Jill Lepore, New Yorker, 12 May 2026
George Caulkin Inconsistency remains Newcastle’s identity For a Newcastle side who kept five clean sheets in their opening seven Premier League games, shutouts have proven painfully hard to come by throughout 2026.
—Chris Waugh, New York Times, 10 May 2026
The Connecticut Sun hoped this season would be different from its dismal record in 2025, but the team’s performance in its 2026 opener against the New York Liberty on Friday night felt painfully familiar.
—Emily Adams, Hartford Courant, 9 May 2026
The recent coverage of a cruise ship hit with a deadly hantavirus outbreak is painfully familiar to cruisers who spent days and weeks trapped in their cabins at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
—Minyvonne Burke, NBC news, 9 May 2026
Space kills with patience, and often much more painfully than the instant deaths depicted in cinema, unfolding over seconds, days, minutes, or even years.
—Alan Bradley, Space.com, 8 May 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for painfully
Adverb
-
On February 20, 1933, a bitterly cold winter day, President Hoover had laid the cornerstone of the new archives.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
13 May 2026
-
Players and owners fought bitterly about how many games should be played during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, settling on 60 games.—
Evan Drellich,
New York Times,
12 May 2026
Adverb
-
David Smith, one of the former owners, reports that despite its wild popularity, the original cake recipe sadly got lost.—
Nancy Vienneau,
Southern Living,
17 May 2026
-
Hüller is having a hell of a year, winning the Silver Bear for her role as a woman passing herself off as a male soldier to claim an estate in Rose, and playing the wry, sadly pragmatic head of the international task force in Project Hail Mary, one of the biggest hits of the year.—
Alison Willmore,
Vulture,
15 May 2026
Adverb
-
Tarun would tease her, and my mother would look sorrowfully toward Kavitha, as if the two of them now shared some womanly burden.—
Madhuri Vijay,
New Yorker,
16 Nov. 2025
Adverb
-
The right idea should expand your world without making your life harder to manage.—
Tarot.com,
Chicago Tribune,
17 May 2026
-
Being shut out of public spaces and opportunities makes reintegration harder, not easier.—
Shianne LeClaire,
Hartford Courant,
17 May 2026
Adverb
-
For their part, Democratic leaders spoke mournfully of limits, of energy shortages, of national decline, of a crisis of confidence itself.—
Rosa Lyster,
Harpers Magazine,
30 Dec. 2025
-
Based on the Dylan Thomas prose poem of the same name, published in 1952, the film lovingly and mournfully depicts the boyhood Christmastime of an old Welshman, tenderly and a tad mischievously embodied by Elliott.—
Sheldon Pearce,
New Yorker,
21 Nov. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Painfully.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/painfully. Accessed 22 May. 2026.
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