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iz noun Classical Mythology.
the greatest Greek warrior in the Trojan War and hero of Homer's Iliad. He killed Hector and was killed when Paris wounded him in the heel, his one vulnerable spot, with an arrow.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Link To achilles
Collins
World English Dictionary
Achilles (əˈkɪliːz) ![[Click for IPA pronunciation guide]](http://static.sfdict.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif) | |
| —n | |
| Greek myth Greek hero, the son of Peleus and the sea goddess Thetis: in the Iliad the foremost of the Greek warriors at the siege of Troy. While he was a baby his mother plunged him into the river Styx making his body invulnerable except for the heel by which she held him. After slaying Hector, he was killed by Paris who wounded him in the heel | |
| Achillean | |
| —adj | |
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source
00:10
Achilles
is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. 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. |
Etymonline
Word Origin & History
Achilles
Gk. hero of the Trojan War stories, son of Thetis and Peleus, his name is perhaps a compound of akhos "pain, grief" (see awe) + laos "the people, a people;" or else it is from a pre-Greek language. Achilles tendon is from Mod.L. tendo Achillis, first used by Ger. surgeon Heister
and so-called in reference to the one vulnerable spot of the great Gk. hero, whose mother held him by the heel when she dipped him in the River Styx to render him invulnerable (though this story is not in Homer and not found before 1c. C.E.). Earlier Achilles' sinew, from Mod.L. chorda Achillis, coined 1693 by Du. anatomist Philip Verheyden when dissecting his own amputated leg. Hence fig use of heel of Achillies for "vulnerable spot" (1810).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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American Heritage
Cultural Dictionary
Achilles [(uh-kil-eez)]In classical mythology, the greatest warrior on the Greek side in the Trojan War. When he was an infant, his mother tried to make him immortal by bathing him in a magical river, but the heel by which she held him remained vulnerable. During the Trojan War, he quarreled with the commander, Agamemnon, and in anger sulked in his tent. Eventually Achilles emerged to fight and killed the Trojan hero Hector, but he was wounded in the heel by an arrow and died shortly thereafter.
Note: People speak of an “Achilles' heel” as the one weak or sore point in a person's character.
Note: The Achilles tendon runs from the heel to the calf.
Note: Achilles is the hero of Homer's Iliad.
Note: The phrase “wrath of Achilles” refers to the hero's anger, which caused so much destruction that Homer refers to it as his main theme in the first line of the Iliad.
The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
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