ail

[eyl]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR ail ON THESAURUS.COM

verb (used with object)

to cause pain, uneasiness, or trouble to.

verb (used without object)

to be unwell; feel pain; be ill: He's been ailing for some time.

Origin of ail

before 950; Middle English ail, eilen, Old English eglan to afflict (cognate with Middle Low German egelen annoy, Gothic -agljan), derivative of egle painful; akin to Gothic agls shameful, Sanskrit aghám evil, pain

Can be confusedale ail awl

Synonyms for ail

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR ail ON THESAURUS.COM

1. bother, annoy, distress.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for ailed

bother, afflict, annoy, pain, distress, upset, sicken, trouble

Examples from the Web for ailed

Contemporary Examples of ailed

It would be impossible to cure all that ailed the GOP in the course of a single calendar year.
GOP Report Turns One—Is it Worth Celebrating?
Kristen Soltis Anderson
March 18, 2014

Historical Examples of ailed

All the knights gathered round him to ask what ailed the Duke.
Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II
Charlotte Mary Yonge
Neither did he himself know what ailed him, any better than they did.
The Paradise of Children
Nathaniel Hawthorne
This gentleman said he never told a fellow what ailed him until he got his whack.
Ned Myers
James Fenimore Cooper
The locksmith's wife knew better perhaps, than he, what ailed her daughter.
Barnaby Rudge
Charles Dickens
But as I was a fixin' it on, I see there was something more than mortification that ailed him.
The Universal Reciter
Various

British Dictionary definitions for ailed

ail

verb

(tr) to trouble; afflict

(intr) to feel unwell

Word Origin for ail

Old English eglan to trouble, from egle troublesome, painful, related to Gothic agls shameful

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

Word Origin and History for ailed

ail

c.1300, from Old English eglan "to trouble, plague, afflict," from Proto-Germanic *azljaz (cf. Old English egle "hideous, loathsome, troublesome, painful;" Gothic agls "shameful, disgraceful," agliþa "distress, affliction, hardship," us-agljan "to oppress, afflict"), from PIE *agh-lo-, suffixed form of root *agh- "to be depressed, be afraid." Related: Ailed; ailing; ails.

It is remarkable, that this word is never used but with some indefinite term, or the word no thing; as What ails him? ... Thus we never say, a fever ails him. [Johnson]