Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or character of being painless: as, the painlessness of certain diseases.

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

  • noun The quality of being painless.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

painless +‎ -ness

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Examples

  • For painlessness, which is positive, is always to be preferred to pleasure, which is negative.

    The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur Emile Joseph Dillon 1894

  • Some leading advocates of this method claim that the majority of the unfavorable results attendant upon "twilight sleep" are the direct result of failure to control the dosage of the drug by these "memory tests;" and they call attention to the large percentage of "painlessness" as proof of probable overdosing.

    The Mother and Her Child William S. Sadler

  • I writhed on the bed, shrieking and cursing, begging for death, despising the Ciara fool! of ten minutes ago, the one who had turned down eternal peace and painlessness.

    Bring On the Night Jeri Smith-Ready 2010

  • I writhed on the bed, shrieking and cursing, begging for death, despising the Ciara fool! of ten minutes ago, the one who had turned down eternal peace and painlessness.

    Bring On the Night Jeri Smith-Ready 2010

  • Its precision has won fans among dentists, and its painlessness is making it popular among patients, says Los Angeles 'Dr. Brett Delawter.

    Blow Your Cavities Away 2008

  • Still, to judge by the legions of women who still give birth in hospitals, the trade-off between safety and relative painlessness and the ability to determine every minutiae of the birthing process is an acceptable one.

    Mother May I? « Love | Peace | Ohana 2006

  • In less than an hour the delirium ceased; then there was an interval of somnolent painlessness and soft breathing, at the end of which

    The Woodlanders 2006

  • I would have thought that the appeal of painlessness was universal-but not to people who had never experienced it.

    A Breath of Snow and Ashes Gabaldon, Diana 2005

  • That human life must be a kind of mistake is sufficiently clear from the fact that man is a compound of needs, which are difficult to satisfy; moreover, if they are satisfied, all he is granted is a state of painlessness, in which he can only give himself up to boredom.

    Essays of Schopenhauer 2004

  • The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom.

    Studies in Pessimism 2004

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