Nearby Words

AchEs

[eyk] Origin

ache

[eyk] verb, ached, ach·ing, noun
verb (used without object)
1.
to have or suffer a continuous, dull pain: His whole body ached.
2.
to feel great sympathy, pity, or the like: Her heart ached for the starving animals.
3.
to feel eager; yearn; long: She ached to be the champion. He's just aching to get even.
noun
4.
a continuous, dull pain (in contrast to a sharp, sudden, or sporadic pain).

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Aches is always a great word to know.
So is quincunx. Does it mean:
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

Origin:
before 900; (v.) Middle English aken, Old English acan; perhaps metaphoric use of earlier unattested sense “drive, impel” (compare Old Norse aka, cognate with Latin agere, Greek ágein); (noun) derivative of the v.


1. hurt. 4. See pain.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

ache
O.E. acan "to ache, suffer pain," from P.Gmc. *akanan, perhaps from a PIE base *ag-es- "fault, guilt," represented also in Skt. and Gk., perhaps imitative of groaning. The noun is M.E. æche, from O.E. æce, from P.Gmc. *akiz. The verb was pronounced "ake," the noun "ache" (by
EXPAND
i-mutation, as in speak-speech) but while the noun changed pronunciation to conform to the verb, the spelling of both was changed to ache c.1700 on a false assumption of a Gk. origin (Gk. akhos "pain, distress"). Achy (adj.) first attested 1875 in George Eliot's letters.
COLLAPSE
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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American Heritage
Medical Dictionary

ache (āk)
n.
A dull persistent pain. v. ached, ach·ing, aches
To suffer a dull, sustained pain.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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