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Ail   Listen
verb
Ail  v. t.  (past & past part. ailed; pres. part. ailing)  To affect with pain or uneasiness, either physical or mental; to trouble; to be the matter with; used to express some uneasiness or affection, whose cause is unknown; as, what ails the man? I know not what ails him. "What aileth thee, Hagar?" Note: It is never used to express a specific disease. We do not say, a fever ails him; but, something ails him.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ail" Quotes from Famous Books



... to be here in satins and velvets, cousin,' said Mrs Jenkins, rising from her seat, and walking up and down, apparently in great wrath. 'What you think of my Howels and your Netta at Abertewey: And you to be all toalking as if we wos ail dirt. And they in France, over the sea, where I 'ould be going with them only I am so 'fraid of ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... letters, Shelley found with exultation that his work was done. As usual, he had carried ail before him, and secured Byron's "Vision of Judgment" for the first number of the Liberal, and by July 7 he was able to show his friends the ever-delightful sights of Pisa. Thus one day of rest and pleasure remained to Shelley after doing his utmost to assist his friend Hunt. To the ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... act too funny for anything!" This time Betty's glance was not one of approval. "What does ail you?" ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson

... the gentleman said, "Billy, do you know, I only heard one of the giants roaring in the night, and the night before only two. What can ail ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant

... Surely Cecilia could not but see him occasionally—or at any rate have the power of seeing him. Or Theodore might do so—as, of course, he would be at the office. If anything ailed him would Cecilia tell her all the truth? But Cecilia, when she began to fear that something did ail him, did not find it very easy to tell ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... The chief promised, and the trader gave him another cupful. Now the chief danced and sang, and went to his lodge, where he fell down in a deep sleep, and no one could wake him. He slept so long the warriors gathered about the lodge wondering what could ail him, and they were about to go to the trader and demand to know what kind of medicine he had given the chief to make him behave so strangely when the chief woke up and ordered them all to their lodges, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... to afford. In this we were especially fortunate, for we knew of no doctor nearer than Fort Hamilton, and we could scarcely expect him to come in any ordinary case of illness. At length our dear mother began to ail, and her pale cheek and sunken eye showed that she was suffering greatly. One evening, towards the end of the year, the trees being already stripped of their leaves, Lily came ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston

... seeing a sort of flying-machine in a lightning flash," said Bert. "Gaw! that was 'orrible. Guns going off! Things explodin'! Clouds and 'ail. Pitching and tossing. I got so scared and desperate—and sick. You don't know how the fight ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the lake, And no ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... Only it is one of the beauties of a Republican form of gov'ment that a Cabnet offisser can pack up his trunk and go home whenever he's sick. Sure nothin don't ail your liver?" sed I, pokin him ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne

... can ail the child," she said to herself, "to be walking about barefoot this time of night? She'll get her death of cold;" and she put down her work and went up stairs, intending to administer a sisterly lecture. To her surprise, ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... usually noticed that when a healthy man don't feel hungry at dinner time, 'specially in the huckleberry season, his healthiness is pretty shaky. What does ail you, Mr. Ellery? Got somethin' on your mind? If you have, I'd heave it overboard. Or you might unload it onto me and let me prescribe. I've had consider'ble experience in ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... you must dig ten feet deep! You must really! If you don't, they will all come up again, and the eyes will be all over the place, haunting you!" Here she broke into the merriest little laugh possible. "Poor Spruce! You do look so miserable! See here— I'll tell you what to do! Pack them ail in a box, and I will send them to my aunt Emily! She loves them! She likes to see them stuck all over the drawing-room. They're never unlucky to her. She has a fellow-feeling for peacocks; there is a sort of affinity between herself and them! Pack up every feather ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... she works her mammie's wark, And aye she sighs wi' care and pain; Yet wist na what her ail might be, Or what ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... I referred above to ail exceptional example of prehistoric art found beyond the borders of France. In excavations in the Thayngen Cave, on the borders of Switzerland and Wurtemberg, twenty most remarkable examples were found, in which it is easy to recognize the horse (Fig. 41), the bear (Fig. 42), and the reindeer ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... back and returning home, went in to his mother, like one distraught. She bespoke him and he answered her neither yea nor nay; then she brought him the morning-meal, as he abode on this wise, and said to him, "O my son, what hath betided thee? Doth there ail thee aught? Tell me what hath befallen thee, for that, against thy wont, I bespeak thee and thou ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... whole sufficient. The personages are puppets; but they are individual, and they are fairly consistent in their individuality. Miss Lockit does not think and feel like Miss Diver; Macheath is distinguishable from Peachum; none is exactly alive, but of stage life ail have their share. The reverse of this is the case with the personages of the Fables. They think the thoughts and speak the speech of Mr. Gay. The elephant has the voice of the sparrow; the monkey is one with the organ on which he sits; there is but a difference ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... scavenger at the palace-gate Who, his left heel being lame, Obtained as a most special grace, That his right should ail the same."[9] ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... pickins; So, ez the eye 's put fairly out, I 'll larn to go without it, An' not allow myself to be no gret put out about it. Now, le' me see, thet is n't all; I used, 'fore leavin' Jaalam, To count things on my finger-eends, but sutthin' seems to ail 'em: Ware 's my left hand? O, darn it, yes, I recollect wut 's come on 't; I haint no left arm but my right, an' thet 's gut jest a thumb on 't; It aint so hendy ez it wuz to cal'late a sum on 't. I 've hed some ribs broke,—six (I b'lieve),—I haint kep' no account on 'em; Wen pensions ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell

... she said, "and you're dropping grease ail over the floor with that candle. You go back to bed, uncle. I'm all right. You go ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... "Oh, it's ail right. Old woman talk to you about Jeff's going to college? I thought so. Wants to make another Dan'el Webster of him. Guess she can's far forth as Dan'el's graduatin' went." Westover tried to remember how this had been with the statesman, but could not. Whitwell added, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... knew what ail'd ma, lads, I felt so fearful prahd; Mi ears pricked up, mi collar rahse, T'ards a hawf-a-yard; Mi chest stood aght, mi charley in, Like horns stuck aght mi tie; Fer I dined wi' a gentleman O' gooise ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright

... lad for longing sighs, Mute and dull of cheer and pale, If at death's own door he lies, Maiden, you can heal his ail. ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman

... ail for that, mother. Why is it any worse to work at Lowell than at home; and you tell me very often that I support myself now. People that love me would go on loving me just as well as ever; and those ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... angrily; "and what should ail thee to shy at the quarry? Give me the weapon." And with that she seized the hammer as though rendered furious by the pusillanimity of her attendants. The whole group were paralysed with terror. Not a word was ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... herself, when she was late, before I could turn round; and I kept my visitors a little on purpose, so that they might get an idea, from seeing her, what would be expected of themselves. I mentioned that she was quite my notion of ail excellent model—she ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James

... thought of, it not only is somewhat different from the real thing, but it rapidly changes. The changes are in many cases clearly due to a suggestiveness in the article of something else, but not always so, as in some cases hereafter described. It is not at ail necessary to think of any particular object at first, as something is sure to come spontaneously within a minute or two. Some object having once appeared, the automatism of the brain will rapidly induce the series of changes. ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... nearly the ordinary course of measles, for we do not meet with that extreme variation in its severity which is observed in scarlatina, where one child will seem scarcely to ail at all, while its brother or sister may be in a state of extreme peril. It is not wise, however, to trust a case even of apparently mild measles to domestic management, for while the cough is troublesome in almost every case, the ear of the experienced ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... soon after the meat is put on to boil, and potatoes, onions, or other tender vegetables when the meat is about half done. Amount of vegetables to be added, about the same as meat, depending upon supply and taste. Salt and pepper to taste. Applies to ail fresh meats and fowls. The proportion of meat and vegetables used varies with their abundance, and fixed quantities can not be adhered to. Fresh fish can be handled as above, except that it is cooked much quicker, and potatoes and onions ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... is to impress the fact that there are necessary and eternal differences of ail things, and implied or consequent relations (proportions or disproportions) existing amongst them; and to bring under this general head the special case of differences of Persons (e.g., God and Man, Man and Fellow-man), ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... can ail thee, knight at arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge is withered from the lake, And no ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters

... tall, finely-formed man, with a broad, good-humored face, whose expression instantly demanded respect from strangers, while his pleasant, affable deportment universally won the friendship of ail who knew him. And 'Lena was not an exception to the general rule, for the moment his warm hand grasped hers and his kindly beaming eye rested upon her, her heart went toward him as a friend, while she wondered why he looked at her so long and earnestly, ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... grounds. It may be that some of the pale-faces are lost, but no Injin is lost—the medicine-priest is mistaken. He has looked so often in his book, that he sees nothing but what is there. He does not see what is before his eyes, at his side, behind his back, ail around him. I have known such Injins. They see but one thing; even the deer jump across their ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... described as healing anyone but once, that every one might fear to link himself with sin; for this reason He declares Himself to be the physician welcomed not of the hale, but of the unhealthy. What sort of a physician is he who knows not how to heal a recurring disease? For if a man ail a hundred times it is for the physician to heal him a hundred times: and if he failed where others succeed, he would be a poor physician ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... was a Christian and she'd own her God anywhere. She used to shout, jus' sit and clap her hands and say, 'Hallalujah.' Once I seed her shout in church and I thinks something ail her and I run down the aisle ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... another so closely during springs and autumns that in truth they were almost a procession. Or with what excitement she had watched each walk out, leaning on the arm of the man she had chosen and henceforth to be called his in ail things to the end while the loud crash of the wedding march closed their separate pasts with ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen



Words linked to "Ail" :   garlic clove, recrudesce, hurt, pain, flavorer, flavouring, suffer, Allium sativum, seasoning, clove



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