Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage

painfully

 adverb
     
pain‧ful‧ly
1 very - used to emphasize a bad or harmful quality that someone or something has:
painfully thin arms
As a teenager, I was painfully shy.
The road to peace is a painfully slow process.
We are only too painfully aware of the damage his actions have caused.
painfully obvious/clear/evident/apparent
It was painfully obvious he'd rather not see her again.
2 with pain or causing pain:
Robyn swallowed painfully.
3 needing a lot of effort:
all the knowledge that he had so painfully acquired
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

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