sick headache

Thân thiện

A woman sits quietly in a dim room, holding her temples during a sick headache.

Definition

Noun: 1. A severe, recurring vascular headache: A specific type of intense headache, often characterized by throbbing pain, that happens repeatedly. This type is more common in women than in men. 2. A headache accompanied by nausea: Any headache where the primary associated symptom is a feeling of sickness or the urge to vomit.

Usage Notes

• The term "sick headache" is an older, more general term. In modern medical contexts, the first definition is closely associated with migraine. The second definition is a descriptive term for a symptom (nausea) accompanying various types of headaches.
• It functions as a countable noun (e.g., , ).

Examples

• She retired to a dark room, suffering from one of her terrible sick headaches.
• The stress of the exam gave him a sick headache that lasted all afternoon.
• My grandmother used the term "sick headache" for what we now call a migraine.

Advanced Usage

• The term can be used descriptively to emphasize the debilitating nature of the headache:

Variants and Related Words

• Migraine (n.): The modern medical term most equivalent to the "severe, recurring vascular headache" sense of "sick headache."
• Nauseous (adj.): Feeling sick to one's stomach, which is the defining characteristic of the second sense.
• Cephalalgia (n.): The formal medical term for a headache.

Synonyms

• For the first sense (severe, recurring): Migraine, megrim (archaic).
• For the second sense (with nausea): Nauseating headache, bilious headache (archaic).

Idioms and Phrases

• To have a sick headache: To be suffering from this condition. This is the standard phrasing, not an idiom with a separate figurative meaning.
  • She told her boss she had to leave early because she had a sick headache.

Học thuật

Noun

1. a severe recurring vascular headache; occurs more frequently in women than men
2. a headache accompanied by nausea

Từ đồng nghĩa

• migraine
• megrim
• hemicrania