Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage. It is the feeling common to such experiences as stubbing a toe, burning a finger, putting iodine on a cut, and bumping the "funny bone".

Pain motivates us to withdraw from damaging or potentially damaging situations, protect the damaged body part while it heals, and avoid those situations in the future. It is initiated by stimulation of nociceptors in the peripheral nervous system, or by damage to or malfunction of the peripheral or central nervous systems.

Most pain resolves promptly once the painful stimulus is removed and the body has healed, but sometimes pain persists despite removal of the stimulus and apparent healing of the body; and sometimes pain arises in the absence of any detectable stimulus, damage or pathology.

Pain is the most common reason for physician consultation in the United States. It is a major symptom in many medical conditions, and can significantly interfere with a person's quality of life and general functioning. Social support, hypnotic suggestion, excitement in sport or war, distraction, and appraisal can all significantly modulate pain's intensity or unpleasantness.

Etymology : "Pain (n.) 1297, "punishment," especially for a crime; also (c.1300) "condition one feels when hurt, opposite of pleasure," from Old French peine, in turn from Latin poena, "punishment, penalty" (in L.L. also "torment, hardship, suffering") and that from Greek "ποινή" (poine), generally "price paid", "penalty", "punishment", from PIE *kwei- "to pay, atone, compensate" (...)."

Pain is an unpleasant sensation which may be associated with actual or potential tissue damage and which may have physical and emotional components.

Sourced

• You probably don't think that I can force this towel down your throat. But trust me, I can. All the way. Except I'd hold onto this one little bit at the end. When your stomach starts to digest it, I pull it out. Taking your stomach lining with it. For most people it would take about a week to die. It's very painful.
  • Jack Bauer, 24, "Day One: 10:00 A.M.-11:00 A.M." [1.11], 12 February 2002

• Douleur toujours nouvelle pour celui qui souffre et qui se banalise pour l'entourage.
  • Pain is always new to the sufferer, but loses its originality for those around him.
  • Alphonse Daudet, La doulou: (la douleur), 1887-1895 (Paris: Librairie de France, 1930) p. 16; Julian Barnes (ed. and trans.) In the Land of Pain (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002) p. 19.

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Thu Jun 24 13:17:16 2010