Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Headache |
HeadacheNoun1. Something or someone that causes anxiety; a source of unhappiness; "New York traffic is a constant concern"; "it's a major worry". 2. Pain in the head caused by dilation of cerebral arteries or muscle contractions or a reaction to drugs. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "headache" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1385. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Botanical | A pain in the head. Abrus, Acacia, Adenanthera, Argemone, Capsicum, Coix, Commelina, Elaeis, Gossypium, Lagenaria, Melia, Morinda, Ocimum, Petiveria, Piscidia, Pothomorphe, Protium, Ricinus, Siparuna, Solanum, Spigelia, Terminalia, Thespesia. (references) |
Health | Pain in the cranial region that may occur as an isolated and benign symptom or as a manifestation of a wide variety of conditions including subarachnoid hemorrhage; craniocerebral trauma; central nervous system infections; intracranial hypertension; and other disorders. In general, recurrent headaches that are not associated with a primary disease process are referred to as headache disorders (e.g., migraine). (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A headache is a condition of mild to severe pain in the head; sometimes upper back or neck pain may also be interpreted as a headache.Headaches have a wide variety of causes, ranging from eyestrain to inflammation of the sinus cavities to life-threatening conditions such as encephalitis. When the headache occurs in conjunction with a head injury the cause is usually quite evident; however, many causes of headaches are more elusive. The most common type of headache is a tension headache.
See Also:
- Tension headache
- Migraine
- Cluster headache
- Rebound headaches
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Headache."
Synonyms: HeadacheSynonyms: cephalalgia (n), concern (n), head ache (n), vexation (n), worry (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Physical Pain | Noun: pain; suffering, sufferance, suffrance; bodily pain, physical pain, bodily suffering, physical suffering, body pain; mental suffering; dolour, ache; aching. Verb: smart; shoot, shooting; twinge, twitch, gripe, headache, stomach ache, heartburn, angina, angina pectoris; hurt, cut; sore, soreness; discomfort, malaise; cephalalgia, earache, gout, ischiagra, lumbago, neuralgia, odontalgia, otalgia, podagra, rheumatism, sciatica; tic douloureux, toothache, tormina, torticollis. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | It gave me a headache. (Monk; writing credit: Andy Breckman; David Breckman) I have a fortuitous headache. (Washington Square; writing credit: Carol Doyle) I have a headache, and with a head this big, that's no joke (Perfect Dark; writing credit: Christine Conradt; Richard Gilbert-Hill) Your constant scheming gives me even more of a headache! (Gladiator; writing credit: David Franzoni) It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level (The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy; writing credit: Douglas Adams; John Lloyd) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Love Is a Headache (1938) The Headache Man (1930) Such a Headache (1901) Headache (2001) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Periodicals |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | After the incubation period of 2-6 days, symptoms of the plague appear including severe malaise, headache, shaking chills, fever, and pain and swelling, or adenopathy, in the affected regional lymph nodes, also known as buboes. Credit: CDC. |  | Rabies in humans is almost always fatal. Symptoms may be headache, fatigue, fever and pain at the site of the bite can be present. Behavioral changes like apprehension, anxiety, agitation, irritability, insomnia and depression may also appear. Credit: CDC. |
 | The Headache : The Cholic. / [George Cruikshank]. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | Through The Looking Glass : Headache Art Exhibition. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | Headache and Neuralgia. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | Feel Better Fast : The Headache / George Cruikshank. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | Catarrh, neuralgia & headache no more. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | Contribute to his headache. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Out! You've been nothing but a headache!. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | If you keep late hours for societys [sic] sake Bromo-seltzer will cure that headache. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Body Parts 1- Headache" by Dan Mulligan Commentary: "Out-of-focus head shot." | "Little White Pills 2" by Paige Foster Commentary: "Macro of white headache tablets." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe | I will not be as those who spend the day in complaining of headache, and the night in drinking the wine that gives it. |
Lewis Carroll | I'm very brave generally, he went on in a low voice: only today I happen to have a headache. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson | Culture, with us, ends in headache. |
Tertullian | Arguments about Scripture achieve nothing but a stomachache and a headache. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | This done, Cosette, upon pretext of a severe headache, said good night to Jean Valjean, and shut herself in her bedroom |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Migraine headache medications. (references) | |
Migraine is a type of vascular headache. (references) | ||
Sudden severe headache with no known cause. (references) | ||
Political Economy | Mexico | Crime is a continuing headache for Mexican politicians. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Headache" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 99.87% of the time. "Headache" is used about 770 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 99.87% | 769 | 8,941 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.13% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 770 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "headache": a bad headache ♦ a bit of a headache ♦ biggest headache ♦ cluster headache ♦ get a headache ♦ have a headache ♦ Headache Disorders ♦ headache powder ♦ headache tablet ♦ histamine headache ♦ it has given me a headache ♦ migraine headache ♦ Monday headache ♦ ophthalmic headache ♦ racking headache ♦ sick headache ♦ sinus headache ♦ tension headache ♦ this is headache. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "headache": headache-ish. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "headache"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Afrikaans | hoofpyn. (various references) | |
Albanian | kokëçarje, dhimbje koke. (various references) | |
Arabic | وجع رأس, صداع. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | главоболие (inconvenience), неприятност (annoyance, cross, mischief, nuisance, packet, plague, rub, scrape, shame, spot, trouble, vexation), причинявам главоболие. (various references) | |
Chinese | 頭痛 , 头疼. (various references) | |
Czech | problém (challenge, crux, issue, problem, proposition, question, snag), bolest hlavy. (various references) | |
Danish | hovedpine (cephalalgia, cephalea). (various references) | |
Dutch | hoofdpijn (cephalalgia, cephalea). (various references) | |
Esperanto | kapdoloro. (various references) | |
Farsi | سردرد, دردسر (Inconvenience). (various references) | |
Finnish | päänsärky. (various references) | |
French | névralgie, mal de tête, mal à la tête, casse-tête, céphalée. (various references) | |
German | Kopfschmerz (cephalea), kopfschmerzen (headaches). (various references) | |
Greek | κεφαλόπονοσ, κεφαλαλγία (cephalalgia, cephalea), πονοκέφαλοσ, πονοκέφαλος. (various references) | |
Hebrew | כאב ראש. (various references) | |
Hungarian | fejfájás (head-ache, migraine). (various references) | |
Indonesian | sakit kepala (hassle, migraine), pusing (dizzy, giddy, groggy, light-headed), mumet (confused, dizzy). (various references) | |
Italian | mal di testa (headaches). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 頭痛 , 頭痛 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ずつう. (various references) | |
Korean | 두통. (various references) | |
Malay | sakit kepala. (various references) | |
Manx | kione-ching (fathead), chingys king. (various references) | |
Norwegian | hodepine. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | eadachehay.(various references) | |
Polish | ból głowy. (various references) | |
Portuguese | enxaqueca (megrim, migraine), dordecabeça, cefaleia (migraine). (various references) | |
Romanian | migrenã (megrim, migraine), durere de cap (megrim, migraine). (various references) | |
Russian | головная боль (head-ache). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | glavobolja (trouble, worries). (various references) | |
Spanish | dolor de cabeza (migraine, tension headache). (various references) | |
Sranan | ed'ati. (various references) | |
Swedish | huvudvärk. (various references) | |
Tagalog | sakít ng úlo. (various references) | |
Thai | อาการปวดศีรษะ. (various references) | |
Turkish | dert (affliction, bore, bother, botheration, complaint, cross, distress, dolor, dolour, evil, fear, grief, grievance, heartache, ill, mopes, nuisance, pain, pip, plague, pother, rock, scourge, solicitudes, sorrow, suffering, throe, trial, tribulation, trouble, woe, worry), baxağrisi, baş belâsı (a thorn in the flesh, a thorn in the side, annoyance, bother, confounded, hellbender, nuisance, old man of the sea, pain in the neck, pestilent, pestilential, stiff, tease, tough, troublemaker, troublesome), baş ağrısı. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | головний біль. (various references) | |
Yucatec | k'iinam (ache, pain). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Greek | 700 BCE-300 CE | karebaria. (various references) |
| Late Latin | 300-700 | hemicrania. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "headache": headaches. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "headache": preheadache. (additional references) | |
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"Headache" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: eadache, headach, headachey, headacke, headake, Heidacker. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-c-d-e-e-h-h" | |
-3 letters: aahed, ached, ahead, dacha, eched. | |
-4 letters: aced, ache, cade, cede, chad, dace, each, eche, hade, haed, haha, head, heed. | |
-5 letters: aah, ace, aha, cad, cee, dah, dee, edh, had, hae, hah, heh. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-c-d-e-e-h-h" | |
+1 letter: beachhead, headaches. | |
+2 letters: beachheads, headachier. | |
+3 letters: headachiest, preheadache. | |
+4 letters: deathwatches. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Quotations: Familiar 10. Quotations: Fiction 11. Quotations: Non-fiction 12. Usage Frequency | 13. Expressions 14. Expressions: Internet 15. Translations: Modern 16. Translations: Ancient | 17. Derivations 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
