Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Pains \Pains\, n.
   Labor; toilsome effort; care or trouble taken; -- plural in
   form, but used with a singular or plural verb, commonly the
   former.

         And all my pains is sorted to no proof.  --Shak.

         The pains they had taken was very great. --Clarendon.

         The labored earth your pains have sowed and tilled.
                                                  --Dryden.

Source : WordNet®

pains
     n : an effortful attempt to attain a goal [syn: {striving}, {nisus},
          {strain}]