be at pains

1. 1.

   try very hard to do something

   Synonymstake pains

   Broaderendeavor

Questions about be at pains

What does be at pains mean?

be at pains means "try very hard to do something".

What is another word for be at pains?

Close synonyms include take pains. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is be at pains a common word?

be at pains is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.