Heartache

How to spell heartache

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce heartache

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does heartache mean?

1. nounDeep emotional pain or sorrow, especially from loss, longing, or disappointment.

Heartache in a sentence

• The months after the divorce were filled with quiet heartache.

• Moving so far from her family caused her real heartache.

Where does heartache come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound that joins two very old words. The first part, heart, descends from the Old English heorte, a word that named both the physical organ and, from the earliest times, the seat of feeling, courage, and memory. The second part, ache, comes from the Old English verb acan, meaning to suffer a dull, lasting pain; the spelling with -ache reflects an old confusion with the unrelated Greek word akhos, even though the English verb is purely Germanic. By the late medieval period these two words were combined to describe a gnawing emotional pain rather than a literal pain in the chest. The modern sense, the deep grief or longing that comes from loss or disappointed love, has been steady in English for centuries. The spelling trap lives in the second half, since the silent, vowel-heavy -ache ending sounds nothing like it looks.

How the word is built

• heart (Old English heorte: the organ, seat of emotion)
• ache (Old English acan: a continuous pain)