Word.ws English Dictionary

heart-ache

heart-ache is the archaic form of heartache.

Meaning of heartache

Noun

heartache (countable and uncountable, plural heartaches)

  1. Emotional distress or pain, often caused by a loved one or their absence.
    • […]: to dye, to ſleepe, / No more; and by a ſleepe, to ſay we end / The Heart-ake, and the thouſand Naturall ſhockes / That Fleſh is heyre too?c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...

Forms of heart-ache

pluralheart-aches

Questions about heart-ache

What is heart-ache the archaic form of?
Heart-ache is the archaic form of heartache.

Words near heart-ache in the dictionary

  1. Heart's Delight
  2. Heart's Delight-Islington
  3. heart's desire
  4. heart's ease
  5. heart's-ease
  6. heart-ache
  7. heart-aches
  8. heart-attack
  9. heart-balm
  10. heart-balms
  11. heart-blood

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: heart-ache (page history and authors); heartache (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “heart-ache.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/heart-ache. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.