Change
Synonyms for painful
The synonym for painful recorded in this bank is sore, in the sense "causing misery or pain or distress". Below it sits the sentence that fixes that meaning, the same sentence with the swap made, and the words that only look close.
The synonym for painful
- soreadjective, in the sense "causing misery or pain or distress"
A single pair, which is what a single sense earns. Words further down the page are near misses and are not synonyms for painful.
causing misery or pain or distress
Their divorce is still a painful subject at family dinners.
The true synonym
sore
Same sentence, swapped: Their divorce is still a sore subject at family dinners.
Close but different
Distractors, not synonyms. This entry has no written reason line yet, so read them against the sentence and the sense above.
- dreadful
- irritating
- cruel
Where painful turns up in the game
painful is the word under test in one puzzle, at Tier 2, Treeline. It also sits on the board as one of the three wrong tiles in three other puzzles, where the answer is a different word entirely.
The puzzles where painful is the trap
- patheticadjective, Tier 1, Foothills. The answer there is poor, in the sense "deserving or inciting pity", with painful sitting one tile away.
- patheticadjective, Tier 2, Treeline. The answer there is pitiful, in the sense "inspiring mixed contempt and pity", with painful sitting one tile away.
- tryingadjective, Tier 2, Treeline. The answer there is stressful, in the sense "extremely irritating to the nerves", and painful is on the board beside it.
Play painful
The bank on this page is the bank the game plays from, so painful reaches you as a board rather than a definition: the sentence first, four tiles, and the meaning after you choose.
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Closest first: other change words at Treeline, then the same tier across the rest of the library.
One vocabulary, two jobs
painful is an answer in 1 puzzle and a wrong tile in 3. That is how the bank is built, and it is why guessing by vibe stops working around tier three.