painstaking

Alternative forms

• (archaic) pains-taking

Etymology

From pains +‎ taking.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈpeɪnˌsteɪkɪŋ/

Adjective

painstaking (comparative more painstaking, superlative most painstaking)

1. Carefully attentive to details; diligent in performing a process or procedure.
   • Harris

     All these painstaking men, considered together, may be said to have completed another species of criticism.

Noun

painstaking (countable and uncountable, plural painstakings)

1. The application of careful and attentive effort.
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, The Essayes, […], printed at London: […] Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:
     , II.10:

     I esteeme Bocace his Decameron, Rabelais, and the kisses of John the second (if they may be placed under this title) worth the paines-taking to reade them.

   • Thomas Chalmers

     It is not by a flight of imagination that you gain the ascents of spiritual experience. It is by the toils and the watchings and the painstakings of a solid obedience.

   • Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham

     Behold what an abundant recompense attends the small processes of the earth, with the help of a little warm air; and what wealthy returns the industry of the husbandman and the florist is preparing from a few seeds and painstakings.