Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To feel ill or have pain.
  • intransitive verb To cause physical or mental pain or uneasiness to; trouble. synonym: trouble.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Painful; troublesome.
  • To affect with pain or uneasiness, either of body or of mind; trouble: used in relation to some uneasiness or affection whose cause is unknown: as, what ails the man?
  • To feel pain; be ill (usually in a slight degree); be unwell: now used chiefly in the present participle: as, he is ailing to-day.
  • noun Indisposition or morbid affection; ailment.
  • noun The beard of wheat, barley, etc., especially of barley: chiefly in the plural.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Indisposition or morbid affection.
  • transitive verb 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.
  • intransitive verb To be affected with pain or uneasiness of any sort; to be ill or indisposed or in trouble.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To cause to suffer; to trouble, afflict. (Now chiefly in interrogative or indefinite constructions.)
  • verb intransitive To be ill; to suffer; to be troubled.
  • noun An ailment; trouble; illness.
  • noun The awn of barley or other types of corn.
  • adjective obsolete Painful; troublesome.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb cause bodily suffering to and make sick or indisposed
  • noun aromatic bulb used as seasoning
  • verb be ill or unwell

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English eilen, from Old English eglian, from egle, troublesome.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English eġlan, eġlian ("to trouble, afflict"), cognate with Gothic 𐌰𐌲𐌻𐌾𐌰𐌽 (agljan, "to distress").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English eġl.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English eyle, eile, from Old English eġle ("hideous, loathsome, hateful, horrid, troublesome, grievous, painful"), from Proto-Germanic *agluz (“cumbersome, tedious, burdensome, tiresome”), from Proto-Indo-European *agʰlo-, *agʰ- (“offensive, disgusting, repulsive, hateful”). Cognate with Gothic  (aglus, "hard, difficult").

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Examples

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  • Delia sailed as a sad Elias ailed.

    October 18, 2008