smärtsam

Smärtsam is a Swedish adjective meaning "painful" or "causing pain." It describes experiences, sensations, or conditions that produce physical pain or emotional distress. It can refer to a tangible injury or medical procedure, but it is also used for emotionally painful situations, such as a painful memory or a painful decision.

Smärtsam is formed from the noun smärta, “pain,” with the suffix -sam, which yields adjectives describing a quality. The exact historical development traces to older Germanic roots for “pain,” but in contemporary Swedish the form is productive and widely used.

In usage, smärtsam can describe physical pain, as in en smärtsam skada or en smärtsam operation, as well as emotional distress, such as smärtsamma minnen or a smärtsam upplevelse. The adverbial form is smärtsamt: Det var smärtsamt att se nyheterna.

Inflection follows standard Swedish adjective patterns. The form agrees with the noun: en smärtsam upplevelse, ett smärtsamt beslut, plural smärtsamma upplevelser. It can appear in attributive or predicative position, and its degree is not commonly compared with other adjectives in everyday usage.

Related terms include smärta (pain) and plågsam (tormenting or agonizing). While smärsam and smärtsamt are typically used for experiences that cause discomfort, they can carry both physical and psychological nuances. In medical contexts, smärta is the preferred noun for pain, with smärtbehandling referring to pain management.