Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. See migraine.
- n. A caprice or fancy. Often used in the plural.
- 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
- 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.
- n. plural Lowness of spirits, as from headache or general physical disturbance; the “blues”; a morbid or whimsical state of feeling.
- 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
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A kind of sick or nervous headache, usually periodical and confined to one side of the head; now more commonly called
migraine headache ormigraine . - n. A fancy; a whim; a freak; a humor; esp., in the plural, lowness of spirits.
- 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.
- n. (Zoöl.) The British smooth sole, or scaldfish (Psetta arnoglossa).
WordNet 3.0
- n. a severe recurring vascular headache; occurs more frequently in women than men
Etymologies
- Origin unknown. (Wiktionary)
- 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.”
“We brought them in, not quite so fast, as though some lurking megrim, some microbe of dissatisfaction with ourselves was at work within us.”
“Although pale and heavy-eyed as befitted someone suffering from a drink megrim, she bore no other outward signs of discomfort.”
“Her aunts had urged her to attend the meeting, but Harriet had declined, claiming a megrim.”
“Although, except for a cloying scent that was fast bringing on a megrim, the little parlor of”
“Only one thing would ct him of his megrim, and she had no intention supplying it.”
“But it must be either a dry dropsie, or a megrim or letarge, or a fistule”
“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.”
“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?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘megrim’.
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phrontistery - m
from phrontistery.info
malm, marc, marl, maya, mazy, meet, mel, mew, mewling, mho, miasma, micaceous and 898 more...
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PECH - marine species
African cuttlefish, Alaska plaice, Alaska pollock, Alaska pollack, walleye pollock, alewife, gaspereau, river herring, sawbelly, allis shad, American angler, goosefish and 994 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Unexpected second meanings
Who knew that dildo was also a type of cactus?
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ecbrenner's list
flatline, luddism, apocalipstick, muttsucker, leviathan of fore..., flint, coryphaeus, donnybrook, bandwidth, bagpipe the mizen, cheesed off, asterism and 525 more...
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The Aubrey/Maturin List I'm Gonna Mak...
I'm wading through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels one by one, and someday, I'll wade through them again and list all the words I learned while reading them.
Edit: I started ma...studdingsail, carronade, mumchance, grumlin-futtocks, crosscat-harpings, holystone, sennit, orlop, orchitis, negus, kevel, altumal and 1112 more...
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inkhorn's Words
inkhorn, aplomb, apotheosis, asinine, avatar, bombastic, boorish, bromide, bucolic, cagey, canvass, digress and 991 more...
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Outlander series words
A place for me to keep words I found (or found anew) while reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. (Culling my enormous "Learned (or Encountered) in Reading" list.)
gralloch, yeuk, corpse-candle, saprophytic, baldachin, Kermanshah, celandine, tynchal, quaich, mesentery, basidium, dittany and 244 more...
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A spoonful of sugar
Words I should learn/I want to learn/I just learned, with a quotation to help the medicine go down.
approbation, assuage, chicanery, abscond, effrontery, enervation, equivocate, ennui, aftertaste, filibuster, perfunctory, abide and 391 more...
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Oh them words, them words
My fancies, my cudgels.
liquescent, ferly, lamia, basilisk, trigon, fantast, stirp, tristesse, enfleurage, stemma, formicary, lacrimation and 346 more...
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the catch-all
inveigle, frontier, invective, quizzical, merit, proficiency, eleemosynary, ham-handed, circumspect, epergne, cobble, industriousness and 201 more...
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19 c.
some of the interesting words i've had to look up while reading 19th century lit
maugre, connate, alembic, azote, vaticination, valetudinarian, dight, scutcheon, lammergeyer, chamois, asseverate, prebendary and 199 more...
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Amusing words
interesting words
bonce, furcate, tapioca, tillage, desalinate, garish, litmus, roadhog, azoic, haberdasher, imbroglio, polliwog and 802 more...
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Exquisite.
Words to my liking. (The most lovelybeautifulintricatecondecendinggratuitous.)
unequivocally, destitute, prudent, sagacious, circumspect, discreet, rash, forethought, evince, judicious, shrewd, extravagant and 227 more...
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To verify definition
Words I've looked up to make sure I knew the correct definition.
megrim, noisome, somnolence, parabola, prehensile, slattern, apropos, panacea, teetotal, collegial, prie dieu, inexorably and 14 more...
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Old Words, Inkhorn Terms
lickerish, truckle, dogsbody, gambrinous, collywobbles, megrim, jentacular, fatigate, furibund, oblatrant, turgidous, ustulation and 24 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for megrim.

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