pains
noun/peɪnz/
1
Trouble taken doing something; attention to detail; careful effort.
- Captain went out in the cab all the morning. Harry came in after school to feed me and give me water. In the afternoon I was put into the cab. Jerry took as much pains to see if the collar and bridle fitted comfortably, as if he had been John Manly over again.[1877], Anna Sewell, “A London Cab Horse”, in Black Beauty: […], London: Jarrold and Sons, […], →OCLC, part III, page 158:
- Not unnaturally, “Auntie” took this communication in bad part.[…]Next day she[…]tried to recover her ward by the hair of the head. Then, thwarted, the wretched creature went to the police for help; she was versed in the law, and perhaps had spared no pains to keep on good terms with the local constabulary.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XLIV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 361:
- Derived terms
- at pains, go to pains, painstaker, painstaking, painsworthy, take pains, take great pains