Other forms: migraines
A migraine is a crushing headache, usually on one side, that can last for days. Light hurts, noise hurts, and lying down in the dark is the only relief.
It is a neurological condition rather than a bad headache, and calling it one is a real irritation to the people who get them. Some sufferers get an aura first, meaning flashing lights or blind spots that warn it is coming. Triggers vary enormously. The word came through French from a Greek term meaning half the skull, which describes the one-sided pain exactly.
1nounmigraineA severe recurring headache, often with nausea and sensitivity to light.
“She gets a migraine two or three times a month.”
A migraine is half a headache. Greek hēmikrania joins hēmi, half, to kranion, the skull, because the pain takes one side of the head, and French wore hemicrania down to migraine.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱerh₂-
egy
gs-tp — a headache
Ancient Greek
ἡμικρανία
Latin
hemicrania — a pain in one half of the head
Old French
migraigne
Middle English
megrim
English, today
migraine
Built from
First appears c. 1425. A respelling (following French -) of the late 14th century Middle English megrim, from the 13th century Old French migraigne, from Vulgar Latin - pronunciation of Latin hemicrania (“a pain in one half of the head”), from Ancient Greek ἡμικρανία, from ἡμι- (“hemi-, half”) + κρανίον (“the skull”) (whence also cranium), a calque of egy gs-tp (“a headache”), from gs (“half”) + tp (“the head”), although the link between the Egyptian magical papyri and the Greek ἡμικρανία could be purely incidental. Cognate to megrim, hemicrania.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA