Ail
adj, noun, verb ·1 syllable ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 An ailment; trouble; illness. obsolete
- 2 The awn of barley or other types of corn. West-Country
- 3 aromatic bulb used as seasoning wordnet
- 1 To cause to suffer; to trouble, afflict. (Now chiefly in interrogative or indefinite constructions.) transitive
"Have some chicken soup. It's good for what ails you."
- 2 cause bodily suffering to and make sick or indisposed wordnet
- 3 To be ill; to suffer; to be troubled. intransitive
"When he ails ever so little […] he is so peevish."
- 4 be ill or unwell wordnet
- 1 Painful; troublesome. obsolete
Example
More examples"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, alone and palely loitering?"
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English eilen, from Old English eġlan, eġlian (“to trouble, afflict”), from Proto-West Germanic *aglijan, from Proto-Germanic *aglijaną (“to trouble, vex”), cognate with Gothic 𐌰𐌲𐌻𐌾𐌰𐌽 (agljan, “to distress”).
Inherited from Middle English eyle, eile, from Old English eġle (“hideous, loathsome, hateful, horrid, troublesome, grievous, painful”). Cognate with Gothic 𐌰𐌲𐌻𐌿𐍃 (aglus, “hard, difficult”).
Inherited from Middle English eile, eyle, eiȝle, from Old English eġl (“an ail; awn; beard of barley; mote”), from Proto-Germanic *agilō (“awn”), related to *ahaz (“ear (of grain)”). Cognate with German Achel, Egel, Ägel.
Related phrases
More for "ail"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.