Achilles
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.
Other words from Achilles
- Ach·il·le·an [ak-uh-lee-uhn, uh-kil-ee-], /ˌæk əˈli ən, əˈkɪl i-/, adjective
Words Nearby Achilles
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use Achilles in a sentence
Then I hurt my Achilles’, and by the time I was healthy, they had decided to go with Grayson.
Amid the pandemic, college football’s powers ceded the stage. Enter Coastal Carolina. | John Feinstein | October 29, 2020 | Washington PostRather than tackling coronavirus assaults one-by-one as they occur like whack-a-mole, it makes far more sense to find their common Achilles heel.
Can We Wipe Out All Coronaviruses for Good? Here’s What a Group of 200 Scientists Think | Shelly Fan | October 27, 2020 | Singularity HubThe only interruption wasn’t another player, or another team, but just an Achilles injury that took away her 2019 season.
The Braves’ biggest Achilles’ heel all season has been starting pitching.
This Rotation Isn’t ‘Vintage Braves,’ But Atlanta Is Making It Work | Neil Paine (neil.paine@fivethirtyeight.com) | October 6, 2020 | FiveThirtyEightThis Achilles’ heel is so detrimental it’s dubbed “catastrophic forgetting.”
How a Memory Quirk of the Human Brain Can Galvanize AI | Shelly Fan | September 28, 2020 | Singularity Hub
Our visionary scientists have found the Achilles heel of yet another enemy of the State—the Superbug!
A second doctor suggested it might be possible to extend his Achilles tendon.
Obama, extremely/quite confident: 32 percent Romney, extremely/quite confident: 19 percent That's the Achilles Heel, gang.
Alexander the Great fashioned himself after Achilles and very much identified with him.
We tried to stay with a very strict core, which is Achilles and Hector.
This failure came as a bitter blow to the keen young soldier, who, after reading Homer, already imagined himself an Achilles.
Napoleon's Marshals | R. P. Dunn-PattisonHecuba invites Achilles and Archilochus to meet her in the temple of Apollo.
Chaucer's Works, Volume 1 (of 7) -- Romaunt of the Rose; Minor Poems | Geoffrey ChaucerChiron would have made Achilles completely immortal but for the lack of the three drops of blood which you refuse me.
Balsamo, The Magician | Alexander DumasTo Achilles, lamenting the death of Patroclus, she came with nectar and ambrosia, that his limbs might not grow faint with hunger.
Greek Sculpture | Estelle M. HurllIt's our one weakness—the one Achilles heel in a m-machine that was meant to be invulnerable.
The Stutterer | R.R. Merliss
British Dictionary definitions for Achilles
/ (əˈkɪliːz) /
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
Derived forms of Achilles
- Achillean (ˌækɪˈliːən), adjective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for Achilles
[ (uh-kil-eez) ]
In classical mythology, the greatest warrior on the Greek side in the Trojan War (see also 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.
Notes for Achilles
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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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