Achilles

[ uh-kil-eez ]

/ əˈkɪl iz /

Save This Word!

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.

QUIZ

CAN YOU ANSWER THESE COMMON GRAMMAR DEBATES?

There are grammar debates that never die; and the ones highlighted in the questions in this quiz are sure to rile everyone up once again. Do you know how to answer the questions that cause some of the greatest grammar debates?

Question 1 of 7

Which sentence is correct?

His boss, whom he admires, is waiting to meet with him about the big project.

His boss, who he admires, is waiting to meet with him about the big project.

TAKE THE QUIZ TO FIND OUT

OTHER WORDS FROM Achilles

Ach·il·le·an

[ak-uh-lee-uhn, uh-kil-ee-], /ˌæk əˈli ən, əˈkɪl i-/, adjective

Words nearby Achilles

achievement quotient, achievement test, achilary, Achill, achillea, Achilles, Achilles heel, Achilles jerk, Achilles tendon, Achill Island, achimenes

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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 Post
Rather 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 Hub
The only interruption wasn’t another player, or another team, but just an Achilles injury that took away her 2019 season.
Breanna Stewart Is Coming For The Record Books|Howard Megdal|October 7, 2020|FiveThirtyEight
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|FiveThirtyEight

This 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!
The Fake Superbug Cure|Kent Sepkowitz|June 21, 2014|DAILY BEAST
A second doctor suggested it might be possible to extend his Achilles tendon.
The Fall and Rise of Skateboarder Danny Renaud|Michael Daly|August 21, 2013|DAILY BEAST
Obama, extremely/quite confident: 32 percent Romney, extremely/quite confident: 19 percent That's the Achilles Heel, gang.
Again I Shout It: Bain Is a Distraction|Michael Tomasky|May 23, 2012|DAILY BEAST
Alexander the Great fashioned himself after Achilles and very much identified with him.
Denis O’Hare Talks About One-Man Show “An Iliad”|Janice Kaplan|March 25, 2012|DAILY BEAST
We tried to stay with a very strict core, which is Achilles and Hector.
Denis O’Hare Talks About One-Man Show “An Iliad”|Janice Kaplan|March 25, 2012|DAILY BEAST
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-Pattison
Hecuba 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 Chaucer
Chiron would have made Achilles completely immortal but for the lack of the three drops of blood which you refuse me.
Balsamo, The Magician|Alexander Dumas
To 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. Hurll
It'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

Achilles

/ (əˈkɪliːz) /

noun

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

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

People speak of an “Achilles' heel” as the one weak or sore point in a person's character.

notes for Achilles

The Achilles tendon runs from the heel to the calf.

notes for Achilles

Achilles is the hero of Homer's Iliad.

notes for Achilles

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.