Achilles heel

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.

Achilles heel

noun

1. a small but fatal weakness

Achilles' heel

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of Achilles' heel¹

First recorded in 1800–10

Idioms and Phrases

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]

Example Sentences

From the passenger seat, Vishnu Persaud coaches me on working the clutch: “So you’re going to slide your foot off the pedal. Just let the bottom of your foot pivot off your Achilles’ heel.”

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“It really highlighted how this could be the Achilles’ heel of Taiwan,” Ricketts said of the wargame, which was run by the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, or FDD.

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Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and a professor emeritus at Cal State San Bernardino, said foreign adversaries and extremists for years have been exploiting a perceived Achilles heel in American society to advance polarization.

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But along the interior of the Chargers’ offensive line — an Achilles’ heel amid last year’s success, too often leaving Justin Herbert running for his life — the battle isn’t over who will start, but where.

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And that starts getting dangerously close to the regime’s real Achilles’ heel.

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