Hemicrania
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A headache affecting one side of the head. countable, uncountable
"Gods, gods, why do you punish me? Yes, no doubt it is upon me again, again this terrible, invincible affliction … this hemicrania which grips half the head with pain … without remedy, without escape … I must try not to move my head. …"
- 2 a severe recurring vascular headache; occurs more frequently in women than men wordnet
Example
More examples"Gods, gods, why do you punish me? Yes, no doubt it is upon me again, again this terrible, invincible affliction … this hemicrania which grips half the head with pain … without remedy, without escape … I must try not to move my head. …"
Etymology
From Late Latin hemicrania (“pain in one half of the head”), from Ancient Greek ἡμικρᾱνίᾰ (hēmikrāníă), from ἡμι- (hēmi-, “hemi-, half”) + κρανίον (kraníon, “skull”) (from whence also cranium). Cognate to megrim and migraine, which also derive from the Latin.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.