painful vs smarting

painful

adj
  • Causing pain or distress, either physical or mental. 

  • Afflicted or suffering with pain (of a body part or, formerly, of a person). 

  • Very bad, poor. 

  • Requiring effort or labor; difficult, laborious. 

smarting

adj
  • Experiencing emotional pain or embarrassment. 

  • Painful, sore. 

noun
  • A sensation that smarts or stings. 

How often have the words painful and smarting occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )