CBSE ENGLISH LANGUAGE & LITERATURE

Detailed explanation-1: -pains·tak·ing ˈpān-ˌstā-kiŋ Synonyms of painstaking. : taking pains : expending, showing, or involving diligent care and effort.

Detailed explanation-2: -A painstaking effort is one in which someone takes pains to do something right. The word is sometimes used to mean “arduous” or “difficult, ” almost as if it meant “painful, ” but this usage is widely considered to be a mistake.

Detailed explanation-3: -“Painstaking” showed up in English as a noun in the 16th century and as an adjective in the 17th. The OED defines the noun, a combination of the plural “pains” plus the verbal noun “taking, ” as the “taking of pains; the application of careful and attentive effort towards the accomplishment of something.”

Detailed explanation-4: -assiduous, careful, conscientious, diligent, earnest, exacting, scrupulous, strenuous, by the book, by the numbers, conscionable, finicky, fussbudget, fussy, hard-working, heedful, industrious, particular, persevering, persnickety.

Detailed explanation-5: -If you notice that painstaking is composed of pains and taking, you already have a pretty clear sense of what this adjective means: to be painstaking is to be so careful, so meticulous, so thorough, that it hurts.