As it was, pain remained the word that Heimir Hallgrimsson could not stop reaching for. Understandable in the circumstances.
The emotions after coming out on the losing side of a penalty shootout do not require a thesaurus to be pulled out.
But amid the avalanche of feelings that the Republic of Ireland manager and his players found themselves weighed down by after the agonising World Cup play-off semi-final defeat to Czechia, Hallgrimsson seemed to extract green shoots the longer he talked in the Fortuna Arena's press conference room.
"First of all, we take that with us that we can play teams higher than us in the FIFA rankings and punch above our weight," he said, having opened up with a salvo of "pain", "pride" in regard to the players' efforts and "gratitude" towards the Ireland fans who descended on Prague in their droves.
"Whether it's Portugal, Hungary or here and compete with these teams.
"We came here with three wins in a row, a long time since that happened for this national team.
"So I think there's growth in the squad. I think it's maturing. This has been the biggest game most of these players have played so that's encouraging to know that we are playing.
"Still it's strange to say that after you lose like today but I feel - I know I'm biased in this - but all the statistics and the metrics around the team are improving.
"So there's growth. Big games on the line, crunch times all the time and we've managed to go through this and I think that shows the resilience (and) the character of these players.
"That's why I feel confident going on that we will keep on improving."
The Icelandic native admitted that there was not much need for words within the dressing room in the immediate wake of what they experienced at the Fortuna Arena.
However, he said his squad will pick up the pieces from shattered dreams in the fullness of time and turn their focus towards Tuesday which is no longer a shot at avenging the resounding play-off loss to Denmark at Aviva Stadium in 2017.
"It's our job to restart tomorrow with probably no one smiling," he said.
"But that's our job to go again tomorrow and prepare for the next one which will be Macedonia in Aviva.
"And then just talking to those players that probably feel more pain than the others and try to motivate them.
"But just true professionals, it doesn't matter what is said to them, there's always going to be pain."
