ache

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
For Sydney, the ache was about the way that the things we hold most dear always elude us.

View all »
Definitions (13)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (6)

  1. intransitive verb To suffer a dull, sustained pain.
  2. intransitive verb To feel sympathy or compassion.
  3. intransitive verb To yearn painfully: refugees who ached for their homeland.
3 more from this dictionary »

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (1)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (4)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • Writing to Peter caused her heart-ache, and there was no certainty that any letter would ever reach him. —  A Presumption of Death - Jill Paton Walsh, Dorothy L Sayers, - [Wimsey-Vane]
  • That very day I had a stomach-ache, and all of a sudden something wet ran down my thighs. —  MEMOIRSOFAYOUNGRAKEHELL
  • And the ache was there again, intensified a hundredfold, and she knew that he could satisfy it. —  Balogh, Mary - The Notorious Rake
  • For Sydney, the ache was about the way that the things we hold most dear always elude us. —  this is sippey.typepad.com
  • Back ache has been medically classified into acute back ache, also popularly known as provisional flare ups that are induced by sprains or fibrillation of ligaments and chronic back ache which encompasses back ache that's far more long lasting and far more difficult than the acute back ache. —  Find Free Articles - ArticlesBase
More examples »
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 334 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

pang ·  throb ·  headache ·  hunger ·  weariness ·  discomfort ·  tremor ·  tingle ·  torment ·  spasm ·  anguish ·  chill

Used in the same contextWord Family

ache:   aches ·  ached ·  aching
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English aken, from Old English acan.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English ache, from Old French ache, “the herb smallage; ache des jardins, parsley” (Cotgrave), French ache = Spanish Italian apio, parsley, from Latin apium, parsley (usually referred to apis, a bee, bees being said to be fond of it: see Apis), from Greek ἂπιον, a species of Euphorbia, perhaps the sun-spurge (or parsley?). Cf. smallage, i. e., small ache.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/ejk/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about once a week.

Recently looked up

yuppie · Victim's · infomercial · Bloxford · grey-haired

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Der dicke Dachdecker deckte dir dein Dach, drum dank dem dicken Dachdecker, dass der dicke Dachdecker dir dein Dach deckte. · weitläufig · und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, so leben sie noch heute · redescheu · selbstverständlich