Log in or Sign up
  1. megrim love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. See migraine.
  2. n. A caprice or fancy. Often used in the plural.
  3. n. Depression or unhappiness: "If these megrims are the effect of Love, thank Heaven, I never knew what it was” ( Samuel Richardson).

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A form of headache usually confined to or beginning or predominating on one side of the head. It may be ushered in by malaise, languor, chilliness, or ocular or other sensory symptoms. The ocular symptoms are such as amblyopia, a glimmering appearance before the eyes, spectra of angular outline (fortification spectra), or hemianopsia. The headache, often becoming overpowering in its character and intensity, lasts from several hours to two or three days. At its height it is attended often with nausea and vomiting. The attacks return with a certain periodicity. Exhausting influences are apt to increase their frequency. The liability to megrim lasts for years, and is apt to disappear in middle life or later. Also called migraine, hemicrania, nervous headache, and sick-headache.
  2. n. plural Lowness of spirits, as from headache or general physical disturbance; the “blues”; a morbid or whimsical state of feeling.
  3. n. plural In farriery, a sudden attack of sickness in a horse at work, when he reels, and either stands still for a minute dull and stupid, or falls to the ground insensible. These attacks are often periodical, but are most frequent in warm weather.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A type of European deep water flatfish, Lepidorhombus whiffiagonis; the whiff or sail-fluke.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A kind of sick or nervous headache, usually periodical and confined to one side of the head; now more commonly called migraine headache or migraine.
  2. n. A fancy; a whim; a freak; a humor; esp., in the plural, lowness of spirits.
  3. n. (Far.) A sudden vertigo in a horse, succeeded sometimes by unconsciousness, produced by an excess of blood in the brain; a mild form of apoplexy.
  4. n. (Zoöl.) The British smooth sole, or scaldfish (Psetta arnoglossa).

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a severe recurring vascular headache; occurs more frequently in women than men

Etymologies

  1. Origin unknown. (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English migrem, variant of migraine; see migraine. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “In the last 25 years, cold water species like cod have moved much further north and to deeper, cooler, waters, an average of 3.6 metres further down, with megrim and monkfish going even deeper.”

    The Guardian: The cold sea ushers in that bracing Norfolk wind

  • “The anguish produced by this self-reproof was so strong that I put my hand suddenly to my forehead, and was obliged to allege a sudden megrim to my attendant, in apology for the action, and a slight groan with which it was accompanied.”

    Chronicles of the Canongate

  • “We brought them in, not quite so fast, as though some lurking megrim, some microbe of dissatisfaction with ourselves was at work within us.”

    The Inn of Tranquillity: Studies and Essays

  • “Although pale and heavy-eyed as befitted someone suffering from a drink megrim, she bore no other outward signs of discomfort.”

    The Falcons of Montabard

  • “Her aunts had urged her to attend the meeting, but Harriet had declined, claiming a megrim.”

    Simon & Schuster: Chasing a Rogue

  • “Although, except for a cloying scent that was fast bringing on a megrim, the little parlor of”

    Gabriel's Lady

  • “Only one thing would ct him of his megrim, and she had no intention supplying it.”

    The Outrageous Dowager

  • “But it must be either a dry dropsie, or a megrim or letarge, or a fistule”

    The Arte of English Poesie

  • “Young Cliff, who, of the entire set-up, would most interest you, will, I hope, grow out of his megrim and return to his music.”

    Died in the Wool

  • “Our youths, who spend their days in trying to build up their constitutions by sport or athletics and their evenings in undermining them with poisonous and dyed drinks; our daughters, who are ever searching for some new quack remedy for new imaginary megrim, what strength is there in them?”

    The Works of Max Beerbohm

Show 10 more examples...

Log in or sign up to add your own related words.

synonyms (4)

Words with the same meaning

  1. fancy
  1. whim
  1. freak
  1. humor

hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. cephalalgia
  1. headache

same context (2)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. gell
  1. hemicrania

reverse dictionary (12)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. meagrim
  2. migraine
  1. migram
  2. migrene
  1. hemicrania
  2. migrainous
  1. mygrane
  2. nerve-storm
  1. sick headache
  2. cephalæa
  1. scaldfish
  2. smooth sole

tags (1)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. medical

Log in or sign up to add your own tag.

Wordmap

(beta)

Word visualization

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘megrim’.

More lists containing ‘megrim’

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • chained_bear "I remembered Phaedre... wringing out cloths in cold tea, observing that her mistress was suffering from headache 'again,' ... and Duncan asking me to make up a lavender pillow, to ease his wife's 'megrims.'"
    —Diana Gabaldon, The Fiery Cross (NY: Bantam Dell, 2001), 1234 Jan 29, 2010

  • ecbrenner According to Dictionary.com, it also means "a fancy; a whim" and "in the plural: lowness of spirits -- often with 'the'."

    Jun 23, 2009

  • bilby "Kate had learned a long time ago that the best way to deal with Effie's megrims was to maintain an attitude of determined cheerfulness."
    - Susan Carroll, 'Midnight Bride'. Mar 5, 2009

  • yarb Great allowance was to be made, he realized, for her humiliation over the flowers in her bonnet. That might justify her, fairly enough, in being kept away from meeting now and again by headaches, or undefined megrims.

    - Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware, ch. 11 Aug 1, 2008

  • reesetee I was curious about this one because it seems so close to migraine. Turns out that migraine was apparently a misreading of migrame, Middle English for a type of headache. Who'd have thought?

    Also, a megrim is a species of left-eyed flatfish found in European seas between 100 and 700 meters below sea level. I wonder if they get headaches. Mar 27, 2008

  • chained_bear "'They were tumbled about, to be sure; yet most ... withstood the tumbling and the uneasy motion of the ship very well. I have often noticed that a prolonged and violent blow storm tends to dispel the megrims...'"
    --Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen, 157 Mar 27, 2008

  • yarb 'Lydgate was abrupt but not irritable, taking little notice of megrims in healthy people'

    - George Eliot, Middlemarch Feb 21, 2008

  • jaime_d from Middlemarch Sep 30, 2007

Tweets

Looking for tweets for megrim.

‘megrim’ has been looked up 1854 times, loved by 6 people, added to 22 lists, commented on 8 times, and has a Scrabble score of 11.