Headache

How to spell headache

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce headache

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does headache mean?

1. nounA continuous pain felt in the head.
2. nounA persistent source of difficulty, worry, or annoyance.

Headache in a sentence

• The bright office lighting gave her a pounding headache by noon.

• The outdated payroll system has become a real headache for the finance team.

• He took two tablets to ease the dull headache after the long flight.

• Parking near the stadium on match days is a constant headache for residents.

Where does headache come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound, recorded in Old English as 'heafodece', formed from 'heafod' meaning the head and 'ece' meaning a continuous, dull pain. Both halves are firmly Germanic in origin, with the second element 'ache' relating to the old verb 'ake' meaning to suffer pain. For centuries the noun was spelled with a 'k' (ake) and the verb with 'ch', until the lexicographer Samuel Johnson, mistakenly believing the word came from the Greek 'akhos' meaning pain or distress, standardised the spelling as 'ache' in the eighteenth century. That tidy but inaccurate decision is exactly why the word ends in '-che' rather than the phonetic '-ke', the usual trap for writers. The figurative use, meaning a troublesome or worrying problem, grew naturally from the literal sense and was common by the nineteenth century.

How the word is built

• head (the upper body part)
• ache (a continuous pain)