Other forms: headaches
A headache is a pain inside your head. A splitting headache, get a headache, headache tablets.
The brain itself has no pain receptors, so the pain comes from the blood vessels, muscles and membranes around it. Tension headaches are much the commonest and migraine is a different condition entirely. Figuratively a headache is a persistent problem: a logistical headache. Note that the word is Old English, head plus ache, and unchanged.
1nounheadacheA pain inside the head.
“I've got a terrible headache, so I'm going to lie down.”
2nounpersistentA persistent problem.
“Finding somewhere to park is a real headache in the city centre.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
headache is a pain.
Old English heafodece is head plus ache. Both halves are Old English and the compound has barely changed.
Old English
hēafodeċe
Middle English
hevedeche
English, today
headache
From Middle English hevedeche, from Old English hēafodeċe. by surface analysis, head + ache.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA