ail

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /eɪl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪl
• Homophone: ale

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”).

ail (third-person singular simple present ails, present participle ailing, simple past and past participle ailed)

1. (transitive) To cause to suffer; to trouble, afflict. (Now chiefly in interrogative or indefinite constructions.)

   Have some chicken soup. It's good for what ails you.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 21:17:

     What aileth thee, Hagar?

   • 2011, “Connubial bliss in America”, in The Economist:

     Not content with having in 1996 put a Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA) on the statue book, Congress has now begun to hold hearings on a Respect for Marriage Act. Defended, respected: what could possibly ail marriage in America?

2. (intransitive) To be ill; to suffer; to be troubled.
   • 1740, Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded:

     When he ails ever so little […] he is so peevish.

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:ail.

ail (plural ails)

1. (obsolete) An ailment; trouble; illness.

From Middle English eyle, eile, from Old English eġle (“hideous, loathsome, hateful, horrid, troublesome, grievous, painful”). Cognate with Gothic 𐌰𐌲𐌻𐌿𐍃 (aglus, “hard, difficult”).

ail (comparative ailer or more ail, superlative ailest or most ail)

1. (obsolete) Painful; troublesome.

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)”).^[1] Cognate with German Achel, Egel, Ägel.

• ile

ail (plural ails)

1. The awn of barley or other types of corn.

• -ial, Ali, IAL, LIA, Lai, ali-, lai

• alj, agl, aill

From Latin allium.

ail

1. (Vegliot) garlic

• Ive, A. (1886) “L'antico dialetto di Veglia [The old dialect of Veglia]”, in G. I. Ascoli, editor, Archivio glottologico italiano [Italian linguistic archive], volume 9, Rome: E. Loescher, pages 115–187

Inherited from Old French, from Latin allium.

• IPA^(key): /aj/

• Audio (Paris):

  (file)

• Audio:

  (file)

• Homophones: aïe, aille, ailles, aillent, ails

ail m (plural ails or aulx)

1. garlic

• ail des ours
• ail sauvage
• alliacé
• ailler

• Haitian Creole: lay (from l’ail)
• Mauritian Creole: lay (from l’ail)
• Moore: lay (from l’ail)

• “ail”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• lai, lia

• oil

From Old Irish ail (“boulder, rock”), from Proto-Celtic *ɸales-, from Proto-Indo-European *pelis-, *pels- (“stone”).^[1]

• IPA^(key): /alʲ/

ail f (genitive singular aileach, nominative plural aileacha or ailche)

1. stone, rock

• Archaic plural: ailche

• ail leachta, ail in úir (“headstone, monument”)

• aill
• ailt

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “ail”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “1 ail”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
• Dinneen, Patrick S. (1927) “ail”, in Foclóir Gaeḋilge agus Béarla, 2nd edition, Dublin: Irish Texts Society
• Finck, F. N. (1899) Die araner mundart (in German), volume II, Marburg: Elwert’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, page 22

ail

1. Alternative form of ale (“beer”)

ail

1. Alternative form of hayle (“hail”)

From Old French, from Latin allium.

ail m (uncountable)

1. (Jersey) garlic

• IPA^(key): /alʲ/

Possibly from Proto-Celtic *ɸalos, from Proto-Indo-European *pels-, *pelis- (“rock, cliff”), see also German Fels (“rock”).^[1]

The declension was not stable at the start of the Old Irish period, with a shift from an i-stem declension to a k-stem declension ongoing.

ail f (genitive ailech, nominative plural ailich)

1. rock
2. foundation

• Middle Irish: ail
  • Irish: ail

·ail

1. third-person singular present indicative conjunct of ailid

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “1 ail”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

From Middle English eilen, from Old English eġlan, eġlian (“to trouble, afflict”), from Proto-West Germanic *aglijan.

• IPA^(key): /eːl/

ail (third-person singular simple present ails, present participle ailin, simple past ailt, past participle ailt)

1. to trouble, afflict (of body or mind)
2. to hinder, prevent
3. to be ill

• “ail, v.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC.

• 2il (abbreviation)

From Middle Welsh eil, from Proto-Brythonic *ėl, from Proto-Celtic *alyos, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂élyos (“other”).

• IPA^(key): /ai̯l/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Homophone: ael (“eyebrow”) (South Wales)
• Rhymes: -ai̯l

ail (feminine singular ail, plural ail, not comparable) (precedes the noun, triggers soft mutation of all nouns)

1. (ordinal number) second

   Synonym: eilfed

   yr ail lawr ― the second floor

• ail- (“re-”), eil- (“re-”)
• ail isradd (“square root”)
• eiliad (“a second”)
• eilrif (“even number”)
• heb ail (“second to none”)