pain in the neck

1. Also,. A source of annoyance, a nuisance, as in Joan is a real pain in the neck, with her constant complaining, or Jack told his brother to stop being a pain in the ass. The first of these colloquial expressions dates from about 1900 and originated as a euphemism for the two less polite variants.

Example Sentences

“When the tariffs came, the 3% of our product that we actually make in Asia was a pain in the neck,” McPhee said.

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“Passing plates back and forth across the table is a pain in the neck,” I told him.

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“You were a pain in the neck,” Agnes observes, in another.

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You and I might translate that as: "The saga over Angela's tax was a total pain in the neck, but it's given us the excuse to make some of the changes we fancied anyway."

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Dr. Sollmann pointed out that non-invasive treatment options that directly target the site of pain in the neck muscles could be highly effective and safer than systemic drugs.

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