Achilles

[ uh-kil-eez ]

noun

, Classical Mythology.

1. 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.

Achilles

/ ˌækɪˈliːən; əˈkɪliːz /

noun

1. 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

Achilles

1. 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

Achilles is the hero of Homer 's Iliad.

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

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 Achilles tendon runs from the heel to the calf.

Derived Forms

• Achillean, adjective

Other Words From

• Ach·il·le·an [ak-, uh, -, lee, -, uh, n, uh, -, kil, -ee-], adjective

Example Sentences

Then I hurt my Achilles’, and by the time I was healthy, they had decided to go with Grayson.

From 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.

From Singularity Hub 

The only interruption wasn’t another player, or another team, but just an Achilles injury that took away her 2019 season.

From FiveThirtyEight

The Braves’ biggest Achilles’ heel all season has been starting pitching.

From FiveThirtyEight

This Achilles’ heel is so detrimental it’s dubbed “catastrophic forgetting.”

From Singularity Hub 

Our visionary scientists have found the Achilles heel of yet another enemy of the State—the Superbug!

From The Daily Beast

A second doctor suggested it might be possible to extend his Achilles tendon.

From The Daily Beast

Obama, extremely/quite confident: 32 percent Romney, extremely/quite confident: 19 percent That's the Achilles Heel, gang.

From The Daily Beast

Alexander the Great fashioned himself after Achilles and very much identified with him.

From The Daily Beast

We tried to stay with a very strict core, which is Achilles and Hector.

From The Daily Beast

This failure came as a bitter blow to the keen young soldier, who, after reading Homer, already imagined himself an Achilles.

From Project Gutenberg

Hecuba invites Achilles and Archilochus to meet her in the temple of Apollo.

From Project Gutenberg

Chiron would have made Achilles completely immortal but for the lack of the three drops of blood which you refuse me.

From Project Gutenberg

To Achilles, lamenting the death of Patroclus, she came with nectar and ambrosia, that his limbs might not grow faint with hunger.

From Project Gutenberg

It's our one weakness—the one Achilles heel in a m-machine that was meant to be invulnerable.

From Project Gutenberg