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• Achilles heel
  Achilles heel

  noun

  a portion, spot, area, or the like, that is especially or solely vulnerable.
• Achilles' heel
  Achilles' heel

  A point of vulnerability. (See Achilles.)

Achilles heel

American  

Or Achilles' heel

noun

1. a portion, spot, area, or the like, that is especially or solely vulnerable.

   His Achilles heel is his quick temper.

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Achilles heel British  

noun

1. a small but fatal weakness

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Achilles' heel Cultural  

1. A point of vulnerability. (See Achilles.)

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Achilles' heel Idioms  

1. A fatal weakness, a vulnerable area, as in This division, which is rarely profitable, is the company's Achilles' heel. The term alludes to the Greek legend about the heroic warrior Achilles whose mother tried to make him immortal by holding the infant by his heel and dipping him into the River Styx. Eventually he was killed by an arrow shot into his undipped heel. [c. 1800]

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Etymology

Origin of Achilles heel

First recorded in 1800–10

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Achilles heel Achilles' heel

Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, said the US economy was "on steroids right now" but that high inflation was its "Achilles heel."

From Barron's ● Oct. 29, 2026

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has called satellite networks “an Achilles heel of modern societies.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 24, 2026

“You have spontaneous multiple events, which is the Achilles heel of any operation,” he said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 12, 2025

It's the Achilles heel of authoritarians throughout time.

From Salon ● Nov. 15, 2024

“An Achilles heel is a weakness, and you’ve got one.”

From "The Million Dollar Shot" by Dan Gutman

B-1 bombers housed at Britain’s RAF Fairford exposed an Achilles’ heel in U.K. defenses: its air bases are far from drone-proof.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026

All villains and warriors have an Achilles’ heel, and for female roles in particular, it’s usually sacrificing themselves to protect their family.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026

For China, “oil is not the Achilles’ heel we thought it was,” said Michal Meidan, head of China energy research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026

A new study has found a way to avoid what has proven to be the Achilles’ heel of momentum strategies — their tendency to occasionally crash and burn.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 9, 2026

Armed with 2,400 years' worth of extra mathematics, it is not hard for us to go back and find Zeno’s Achilles’ heel.

From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife

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