growing pains

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plural noun
  1. dull, quasi-rheumatic pains of varying degree in the limbs during childhood and adolescence, often popularly associated with the process of growing.

  2. emotional difficulties experienced during adolescence and preadulthood.

  1. difficulties attending any new project or any rapid development of an existing project: a city plagued with growing pains.

Origin of growing pains

1
First recorded in 1800–10

Words Nearby growing pains

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use growing pains in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for growing pains

growing pains

pl n
  1. pains in muscles or joints sometimes experienced by children during a period of unusually rapid growth

  2. difficulties besetting a new enterprise in its early stages

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with growing pains

growing pains

Problems that arise in beginning or enlarging an enterprise, as in The company is undergoing growing pains but should be viable by next year. This expression, which dates from the late 1800s, originally referred to the joint and limb aches experienced by youngsters who are growing rapidly. By about 1900 it was being used figuratively.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.