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View synonyms for Achilles heel

Achilles heel

or Achilles' heel

noun

  1. a portion, spot, area, or the like, that is especially or solely vulnerable:

    His Achilles heel is his quick temper.



Achilles heel

noun

  1. a small but fatal weakness
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Achilles' heel

  1. A point of vulnerability. ( See Achilles .)
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Word History and Origins

Origin of Achilles heel1

First recorded in 1800–10
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Idioms and Phrases

A fatal weakness, a vulnerable area, as in This division, which is rarely profitable, is the company's Achilles' heel . The term alludes to the Greek legend about the heroic warrior Achilles whose mother tried to make him immortal by holding the infant by his heel and dipping him into the River Styx. Eventually he was killed by an arrow shot into his undipped heel. [c. 1800]

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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