painsong

English

Etymology

pain +‎ song

Noun

painsong (plural painsongs)

1. (poetic, rare) A cry or feeling of pain and distress.
   • 1993, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, These are My Rivers, New Directions, →ISBN, page 100:

     Love's true willsong / Love's low plainsong / Too sweet painsong

   • 2011, Dennis Kolb, Never Take Advice from an Unscarred Man, Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, page 84:

     I tried to keep my hand high to stop my strong heart from pumping me dry, while I worked on the second stanza of my painsong. Nature had been kind enough to pop the finger like a ripe grape to take the pressure off.

   • 2021, Adam Levin, Bubblegum, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 9:

     The rugburn became increasingly inflamed, and, through trembling lips, which were pursed as if to whistle, my cure began singing its sublime, plaintive painsong.

   • 2022, Linda LeGarde Grover, The Sky Watched, University of Minnesota Press, →ISBN:

     I'm undersized and quiet, mousy you think / and it irritates you to see me puffing my mouse cheeks / while I read at my desk. You don't know it's my teeth / my teeth a painsong accompanying what I do