Metaphors for Pain: Ways to Describe How It Hurts

On this page14 sections

1. Quick picker: what kind of pain?
2. Blades and weapons: sharp, sudden pain
3. Fire: burning and raw pain
4. Weight and pressure: heavy, tight pain
5. Electricity and movement: shooting pain
6. Drums and hammers: throbbing pain
7. Creatures and decay: slow, persistent pain
8. Water and weather: pain that comes and goes
9. Emotional pain: wounds, breakage and weight
10. Describing pain to a doctor
11. Common pairings by body part
12. Using pain metaphors in writing
13. Practice
14. Quick answers

The metaphors people reach for most when describing pain compare it to a weapon (a knife in my side, a stabbing pain), to fire (burning, a fire in my joints), to weight or pressure (a weight on my chest, a vice around my head), to electricity (a jolt, shooting pain), to a living attacker (gnawing, pain that bites) or to water and weather (waves of pain, a storm in my head). Each family tells the listener something specific: what the pain feels like, where it moves, and whether it comes and goes. That is why doctors ask whether pain is “sharp”, “dull”, “burning” or “throbbing” – everyday pain vocabulary is metaphor that has become ordinary language.

This page is for writers, students and anyone who needs to put pain into words, including to a doctor. For what makes something a metaphor rather than a simile, see our figurative language guide. One note before the lists: many “pain metaphors” online are really similes, because they use like (“it feels like a knife”). Both are useful; this page marks which is which where it matters.

Quick picker: what kind of pain?

Blades and weapons: sharp, sudden pain

These are the oldest and most common pain metaphors in English. “Stab”, “pierce” and “cut” describe pain that is concentrated in one spot and feels like an injury from outside.

• A stabbing pain – sudden and sharp, often in one place. “I felt a stabbing pain under my ribs when I bent down.” This is so common that it is the standard wording in medical forms.
• A knife in my side / back – a sharp, localised pain. “After the run, there was a knife in my side for ten minutes.” Careful: “a knife in the back” also means betrayal, so in writing about emotional pain it will be read that way.
• Piercing – very sharp and penetrating. “A piercing pain shot through her ear.” Also used for sounds (“a piercing scream”), which can make it a good choice in a scene where noise and pain overlap.
• Splitting headache – a fixed phrase for a severe headache that feels as if the head is breaking apart. “I’ve had a splitting headache since lunch.”
• Like broken glass (simile) – pain with grinding or scraping, often used for joints, eyes or a sore throat. “Swallowing felt like broken glass.”
• Needles / pins and needles – “pins and needles” is the tingling when a limb has “gone to sleep”; “needles of pain” is sharper. “Cold rain drove needles into my face.”

Fire: burning and raw pain

• Burning – the usual word for nerve pain, heartburn, a sting or a pulled muscle that feels hot. “There’s a burning pain down the back of my leg.”
• Searing – intense and sudden, as if touched by something red-hot. “A searing pain ran up her arm when she lifted the pan.”
• My muscles were on fire – common after hard exercise. “By the last hill, my thighs were on fire.” It is usually not serious; it describes effort.
• Raw – painful as if the skin has been scraped off. “My throat felt raw after the concert.” Also used emotionally: “Her grief was still raw.”
• Smouldering – pain that stays at a low heat and might flare up. “The old injury smouldered all winter.”
• A flare-up – a sudden return or worsening of a long-term condition. “She had a flare-up of arthritis after the long flight.” This has become standard medical English.

Weight and pressure: heavy, tight pain

• A weight on my chest – heavy, pressing pain. Used both physically and for worry or grief. “Since the argument, there’s been a weight on my chest.” Chest pain that feels like heavy pressure can be a sign of a heart attack; in real life, this is a description to give a doctor urgently, not just a figure of speech.
• A vice / a band around my head – the classic description of a tension headache. “It’s like a tight band around my forehead.” (A vice is a clamp used in workshops; American English spells it “vise”.)
• Crushing – severe pressure. “He felt a crushing pain in his chest.” Also used of disappointment: “a crushing defeat”.
• Dull ache – “dull” is a metaphor from blades: a dull knife does not cut cleanly. A dull ache is low, steady and hard to pinpoint. “There’s a dull ache in my lower back by the end of the day.”
• Heavy – limbs that hurt and feel hard to move. “My legs were heavy and aching after the flu.”

Electricity and movement: shooting pain

• Shooting pain – pain that travels quickly along a line, often down an arm or leg. “Sciatica sends a shooting pain from my hip to my foot.”
• A jolt – a single sudden shock. “A jolt of pain went through my knee when I twisted it.”
• Like an electric shock (simile) – a brief, intense, nerve-like pain. “When the dentist touched the tooth, it felt like an electric shock.” Hitting your “funny bone” (actually the ulnar nerve at the elbow) is the everyday example.
• Radiating – spreading outward from one point. “The pain radiated from my jaw into my ear.” Doctors use this word, and so can you.

Drums and hammers: throbbing pain

• Throbbing – pain that pulses, often with the heartbeat. “My thumb was throbbing where I’d hit it with the hammer.”
• Pounding headache – throbbing and loud-feeling. “I woke with a pounding headache.”
• A drum in my head – a literary version. “The drum in her head kept time with every footstep.”
• Hammering – repeated heavy blows. “The migraine was hammering behind my eyes.”

Creatures and decay: slow, persistent pain

• Gnawing – steady, chewing pain, like an animal at a bone. “A gnawing pain in his stomach kept him awake.” It also describes worry or hunger: “a gnawing doubt”.
• Nagging – minor but never quite gone. “I’ve had a nagging pain in my shoulder for months.”
• Biting – sharp and quick, especially from cold. “a biting wind”, “the biting pain of frostbite”.
• Eating away at – wearing something down over time. Mostly emotional: “Guilt was eating away at him.”
• A constant companion – for chronic pain that is always present. “For ten years, pain had been her constant companion.” Writers use this to show how long-term pain changes daily life.

Water and weather: pain that comes and goes

• Waves of pain – pain that builds, peaks and fades, then returns. Used for contractions in labour, cramps and nausea. “Waves of pain rolled through her as the contractions got closer.”
• A surge – a sudden increase. “A surge of pain made him grip the rail.”
• Ebb – when pain fades. “By morning the pain had ebbed to a dull ache.”
• A storm in my head – for a migraine or headache with many sensations at once. “The storm in my head didn’t pass until evening.”

Water images also work for grief and sadness; our page of metaphors for sadness covers those.

Emotional pain: wounds, breakage and weight

English uses physical pain words for emotional suffering so often that we barely notice. These are the main patterns:

• Heartbreak / a broken heart – the pain of loss or rejection in love. “She was heartbroken when he left.” Our metaphors for heartbreak page goes deeper.
• An open wound – pain that has not healed. “The divorce was still an open wound.”
• Scars – lasting effects of past pain. “The war left deep scars on the town.”
• To rub salt in the wound – to make someone’s pain worse. “Then, to rub salt in the wound, they posted photos of the party I wasn’t invited to.”
• A stab of jealousy / regret / guilt – a sudden sharp feeling. “She felt a stab of jealousy when she saw them together.”
• Sting – quick, sharp emotional hurt. “The sting of the rejection lasted all week.”
• Heavy-hearted – weighed down by sadness. “We left the hospital heavy-hearted.”

For grief in particular, see metaphors for grief.

Describing pain to a doctor

Metaphors are genuinely useful in a medical appointment: “burning” suggests something different from “crushing” or “shooting”. A clear description usually covers:

1. Where it is, and whether it spreads (“it starts in my lower back and shoots down my left leg”).
2. What it feels like, using one or two of the words above (stabbing, burning, throbbing, dull, tight).
3. How strong it is, often on a scale of 0 to 10.
4. When it started and whether it is constant or comes and goes (“it comes in waves every few minutes”).
5. What makes it better or worse.

Choose the plainest accurate word. A doctor will understand “a stabbing pain” at once; “a dragon clawing at my ribs” is vivid in a story but harder to interpret in a clinic.

Common pairings by body part

Some pain words sit naturally with certain parts of the body, because they match how that pain usually feels. These pairings sound natural to native speakers:

“Knotted” (a stomach “in knots”) and “churning” are also used for nervousness, so they work well in a scene where a character is anxious and in physical discomfort at the same time.

Using pain metaphors in writing

• Match the metaphor to the injury. A burn burns; a bruise throbs and aches; a cut stings. A sprained ankle that “burns like acid” will feel wrong to readers who have had one.
• One image at a time. “A burning knife of waves” mixes three families and becomes confusing. Choose the image that fits and stay with it.
• Freshen the cliché, don’t replace it with nonsense. “Stabbing pain” is clear but flat in fiction. A small specific detail can make it new: “a pain that arrived like someone sliding a thin blade between two ribs and then thinking better of it.”
• Show effects, too. What can the character no longer do? Pain becomes real to a reader through behaviour – not being able to lift a kettle, holding a breath before standing.
• Be careful with chronic illness. People who live with long-term pain often dislike battle metaphors (“fighting”, “losing the battle”), because they imply that getting worse is a personal failure. Neutral wording is kinder in non-fiction.

Practice

Pick the metaphor family that fits each description.

1. A headache that pulses with every heartbeat.
2. Pain that runs from the neck down the arm in a quick line.
3. A tight pain around the forehead, as if something is squeezing it.
4. Cramps that build, peak and fade, then return.
5. A sore that has bothered you slightly for weeks.
6. The hurt of hearing a friend has lied to you.

Answers: 1. throbbing / pounding; 2. shooting / radiating; 3. a vice or band around the head; 4. waves of pain; 5. nagging; 6. a stab of hurt, a sting, or a knife in the back.

Quick answers

What is a metaphor for pain?

“Pain is a fire in my joints”, “a knife in my side”, “a weight on my chest” and “waves of pain” are all metaphors, because they describe pain as something it literally is not.

What is the difference between a pain metaphor and a pain simile?

A simile uses like or as: “It feels like a knife.” A metaphor says it directly: “a knife of pain”. For more comparisons, see similes for pain.

How do you describe physical pain figuratively?

Decide what the pain does – stab, burn, press, shoot, throb, gnaw or come in waves – and choose a word from that family. Then add where it is and how it changes. One precise word plus one detail usually beats a long chain of images, whether you are writing a story or filling in a medical form.

Are there idioms about pain?

Yes: “no pain, no gain”, “a pain in the neck” (an annoying person or task), “rub salt in the wound”, “grin and bear it”. See idioms for pain.