pain threshold
- noun
- /peɪn ˈθrɛʃhoʊld/
- Specialized
- More of a dancer, really, with a very high pain threshold.
- increase in pain threshold
- decrease in pain threshold
- significant increase in pain threshold
Joe's sex pain threshold is higher than others.
- Joe's sex pain threshold is higher than others.
- There's a lot of things that play into changes in pain thresholds.
- So I would say the persistence, the pain threshold, because there's a lot of pain.
Examples
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A lot of people are not built for this industry because they have low pain thresholds.
Blog text (2) -
And I definitely agree that we all have different pain thresholds.
Blog text (7) -
- How high is your pain threshold?
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Find out his pain threshold and get back to me.
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Lady, you have a hell of a high pain threshold.
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Perhaps she has an extremely low pain threshold.
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And I've got a fiendishly high pain threshold.
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Instead, he and his colleagues turned to pain thresholds, an indirect but generally accepted marker of endorphin production.
Blog text (2) -
The results of the present investigation indicate that engaging in a martial arts training program is associated with increased pain threshold and decreased pain ratings among novice participants.
Academic text (2000) -
Many athletes develop a high pain threshold to endure tough training sessions.
How Sensitive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun phrase is directly compositional: 'pain' (sensation of hurt) combined with 'threshold' (the lowest intensity that produces a sensation) yields the minimum stimulus level at which pain is felt. This follows common noun+noun compounding and has clear cross‑linguistic parallels, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer the meaning.
Etymology
Pain threshold comes from the image of a threshold as the line at a door that you cross, and when a feeling passes that line you begin 'to feel pain'. So, it means the smallest amount of something that makes you 'feel pain'.