Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Painful.
  • Painstaking; careful.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Painstaking; assidous.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective obsolete painstaking; assiduous

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French penible. Compare painable.

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Examples

  • C'est vraiment stressant a un point pas croyable et c'est aussi penible cet etrange double souffle que j'ai!

    pinku-tk Diary Entry pinku-tk 2007

  • Je m'avancais d'un pas penible et mal assure vers le but de ce convoi tragique.

    The French Immortals Series — Complete Various

  • It was with the intention of producing an effect of sincerity that he foretold the war would be long and grievous, (longue et penible); with a people of the French national character it would have been better had he been able to write “terrible, but short.”

    Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth Brandes, George, 1842-1927 1906

  • He had small personal acquaintance with Polpier itself: the steepness of the coombs in which it lay was penible to a man of his weight: yet, albeit by hearsay, he knew the inner workings of the small town, being interested in the circumstances of all his neighbours, vividly charitable towards them, and at the same time no fool in judging.

    Nicky-Nan, Reservist Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch 1903

  • He hath received of thee the vesture of immortality; of me he hath taken this penible coat with which he is clad.

    The Golden Legend, vol. 1 1230-1298 1900

  • Ce qu'il y a de plus penible c'est la position de sa soeur qui s'etait entierement devouee a lui et a la paroisse.

    Philip Gilbert Hamerton Hamerton, Philip G 1896

  • Enfin regardons la situation actuelle comme penible, mais pas du tout permanente.

    Philip Gilbert Hamerton Hamerton, Philip G 1896

  • Vraiment c'est penible d'etre la avec son dernier enfant qui s'en va si vite.

    Philip Gilbert Hamerton Hamerton, Philip G 1896

  • Thus I observe in Chaucer such French words as these, ‘misericorde’, ‘malure’ (malheur), ‘penible’, ‘ayel’ (aieul),

    English Past and Present Richard Chenevix Trench 1846

  • Une autre infirmite plus ctonnante, encore, o'est que cette princesse perdit presque totalementc la voix; aussi de sa fautc a ce qui l'on a pretendu il lui etait difficile de parlor, et tres - penible aux autres de l'entendre.

    Berlin and Sans-Souci; or Frederick the Great and his friends 1843

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