Ail
to cause pain, uneasiness, or trouble to.
to be unwell; feel pain; be ill:
He’s been ailing for some time.
Historical Examples
At this instant the chief surgeon was beginning to feel the injured thigh and point out to the pupils the extent of the ail.
The Mesmerist’s Victim Alexandre Dumas
Weel, maybe I was thinkin’ hoo I wad leuk at her gin onything did ail her.
David Elginbrod George MacDonald
After ail, this was the point for the sake of which those laborious investigations had been undertaken.
Edward Caldwell Moore Edward Moore
O, what can ail thee, knight at arms, So haggard and so woe-begone?
Mitch Miller Edgar Lee Masters
Adjectives in ail derived from Nouns; as, from fear man, fearail manful; from caraid a friend, cairdail contr.
Elements of Gaelic Grammar Alexander Stewart
The adult ram is signified by the word “ayil,” or “ail,” and the ewe by “rakal.”
Bible Animals; J. G. Wood
Abe Hardin’, for heaven’s sakes, can’t you pick up your moorin’s, or what does ail you?
Galusha the Magnificent Joseph C. Lincoln
No, nothing might ail him bodily; but mentally—ah, how much!
Johnny Ludlow, Sixth Series Mrs. Henry Wood
O souls what ail thee, its envy’s dark cloud broader than the earth, and deeper than the sea.
The Secret of the Creation Howard D. Pollyen
His shin and his knee are hardly to be seen to ail any thing.
Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded Samuel Richardson
verb
(transitive) to trouble; afflict
(intransitive) to feel unwell
v.
c.1300, from Old English eglan “to trouble, plague, afflict,” from Proto-Germanic *azljaz (cf. Old English egle “hideous, loathsome, troublesome, painful;” Gothic agls “shameful, disgraceful,” agliþa “distress, affliction, hardship,” us-agljan “to oppress, afflict”), from PIE *agh-lo-, suffixed form of root *agh- “to be depressed, be afraid.” Related: Ailed; ailing; ails.
It is remarkable, that this word is never used but with some indefinite term, or the word no thing; as What ails him? … Thus we never say, a fever ails him. [Johnson]
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