ache

Meaning

1. To suffer pain; to be the source of, or be in, pain, especially continued dull pain; to be distressed.
2. To cause someone or something to suffer pain.

pain

hurt

be painful

be sore

feel pain

be in pain

be pained

have pain

feel painful

be distressed

be hurt

dull pain

get irritated

in pain

pain sensation

suffer from

suffer pain

feel a pain

become painful

rheumatic pain

have pains and aches

stound

Keble

painful sensation

desiderium

aspire to

hope for

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈeɪk/

From Middle English aken (verb), and ache (noun), from Old English acan (verb) (from Proto-West Germanic *akan, from Proto-Germanic *akaną (“to be bad, be evil”)) and æċe (noun) (from Proto-West Germanic *aki, from Proto-Germanic *akiz), both from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eg- (“sin, crime”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian eeke, ääke (“to ache, fester”), Low German aken, achen, äken (“to hurt, ache”), German Low German Eek (“inflammation”), North Frisian akelig, æklig (“terrible, miserable, sharp, intense”), West Frisian aaklik (“nasty, horrible, dismal, dreary”), Dutch akelig (“nasty, horrible”). The verb was originally strong, conjugating for tense like take (e.g. I ake, I oke, I have aken), but gradually became weak during Middle English; the noun was originally pronounced as /eɪt͡ʃ/ as spelled (compare breach, from break). Historically the verb was spelled ake, and the noun ache (even after the form /eɪk/ started to become common for the noun; compare again break which is now also a noun). The verb came to be spelled like the noun when lexicographer Samuel Johnson mistakenly assumed that it derived from Ancient Greek ἄχος (ákhos, “pain”) due to the similarity in form and meaning of the two words.