Everyone has weakness - physical, emotional, intellectual, and/or others. The phrase Achilles' heel is used in contemporary language to describe a point of weakness or vulnerability in someone or something. For example:



* The airplane that we built is beautiful, but we must examine its engine for any Achilles' heels.

* She is just too good to be true; surely she has an Achilles' heel.



Achilles' heel originates from Greek mythology. Interestingly, in Homer's Iliad, Achilles' weakness was his pride. It was the Roman poet Statius who wrote of the tale of Achilles and the River Styx. When Achilles was born, his mother, Thethis, desired to make him immortal. It was reputed that the waters of Styx, a poisonous underworld river, held such supernatural powers, so she took him to the riverbank and, holding him by his heel, dipped him in the river. Later, he was mortally wounded in the Trojan War by an injury to his heel - the hell that remained untouched by the river water because of his mother's grasp on it.