A particularly painful example may be occurring right now.

Perhaps the most painful example of class conflict came on last week's episode of "The Bachelor."

"Haven't you learned anything from the painful example of your elders, boys and girls?"

But now she has become a painful example of what can happen to a person who is labeled as having cried wolf.

Each one was mortal, a passionate, painful example of all that is transitory.

Sisters might make painful examples of people caught snooping, but they did not kill them.

His press conference last week offered painful examples.

He sees the job as an exercise in complete humiliation, and training a painful example of corporate humorlessness.

California presents a painful example of how those numbers have failed, so far at least, to generate political clout.

The Fourniret affair is a distressing and painful example of this.