Dictionary

painsong en · NOUN

Etymology

From pain + song.

Meanings

1. (poetic, rare) A cry or feeling of pain and distress.
   • The rugburn became increasingly inflamed, and, through trembling lips, which were pursed as if to whistle, my cure began singing its sublime, plaintive painsong. 2021, Adam Levin, Bubblegum, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 9:
   • I'm undersized and quiet, mousy you think / and it irritates you to see me puffing my mouse cheeks / while I read at my desk. You don't know it's my teeth / my teeth a painsong accompanying what I do 2022, Linda LeGarde Grover, The Sky Watched, University of Minnesota Press, →ISBN:
   • Love's true willsong / Love's low plainsong / Too sweet painsong 1993, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, These are My Rivers, New Directions, →ISBN, page 100:
   • I tried to keep my hand high to stop my strong heart from pumping me dry, while I worked on the second stanza of my painsong. Nature had been kind enough to pop the finger like a ripe grape to take the pressure off. 2011, Dennis Kolb, Never Take Advice from an Unscarred Man, Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, page 84:

Forms