Painlessly

Part of speech: adverb

Definitions

1. Experience without discomfort or suffering
2. In a manner devoid of physical or emotional distress
3. Conducted in a way that does not elicit any feeling of pain or hardship

Etymology: "Painlessly" is about as plain as English adverbs get: it is the adjective "painless" with the adverbial ending "-ly" attached. "Painless" is itself a compound of "pain" and the suffix "-less," meaning "without," so the word is built in layers, each one a simple addition to an older English stem. The ending is the more interesting part. The "-ly" descends from an Old English suffix, "-līce," which was attached to adjectives to form adverbs of manner, and which in turn traces back through Proto-Germanic to a root that also gave English "like" in the sense of "similar in form." So "painlessly" is, at bottom, "in a manner like being without pain," with the old word for resemblance quietly doing the grammatical work.

Synonyms: effortlessly, smoothly, easily

Antonyms: painfully, strenuously, difficultly