ache
Americanverb (used without object)
-
to have or suffer a continuous, dull pain.
His whole body ached.
- Synonyms:
- hurt
-
to feel great sympathy, pity, or the like.
Her heart ached for the starving animals.
-
to feel eager; yearn; long.
She ached to be the champion. He's just aching to get even.
noun
verb
-
to feel, suffer, or be the source of a continuous dull pain
-
to suffer mental anguish
noun
Related Words
See pain.
Other Word Forms
- aching adjective
- achingly adverb
Etymology
Origin of ache
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.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But now, even the ends of his fur seemed to ache from the exertion of paddling.
From Literature
In retrospect, taken collectively, much of McCarthy’s work as an actor, filmmaker and journalist hinges on the friendship motif — that primordial ache to belong, that yearning to be seen.
From Los Angeles Times
The unremittingly positive little girl described her symptoms before she was diagnosed as "belly aches and everything, and I felt sick but other than that, I just felt like a normal person".
From BBC
"We cannot grieve; we can only ache and wonder. Our focus is solely on finding her and bringing her home."
From BBC
Increasingly I was spending the days as I did the nights, tossing on the thin straw pallet trying in vain to find a position in which all aches at once were eased.
From Literature
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
