Done with great care, attention, and effort; taking special pains to do something correctly and thoroughly.
From 'pain' (suffering) and 'taking,' literally meaning 'taking pains.' The phrase 'painstaking' became a single adjective in the 16th century, with the adverb form following standard English patterns.
This word is a fossil showing how English speakers once thought hard work required actual suffering—saying someone was 'taking pains' to describe effort—revealing how much cultures valued difficulty and struggle as markers of quality.
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