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ill

[il]

Example Sentences Origin

adjective

of unsound physical or mental health; unwell; sick: She felt ill, so her teacher sent her to the nurse.

objectionable; unsatisfactory; poor; faulty: ill manners.

hostile; unkindly: ill feeling.

evil; wicked; bad: of ill repute.

unfavorable; adverse: ill fortune.

EXPAND

of inferior worth or ability; unskillful; inexpert: an ill example of scholarship.

COLLAPSE

noun

an unfavorable opinion or statement: I can speak no ill of her.

harm or injury: His remarks did much ill.

trouble, distress, or misfortune: Many ills befell him.

10.

evil: to know the difference between good and ill.

11.

sickness or disease.

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Ill is always a great word to know.

So is slumgullion. Does it mean:

a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.

a fool or simpleton; ninny.

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adverb

12.

in an ill manner.

13.

unsatisfactorily; poorly: It ill befits a man to betray old friends.

14.

in a hostile or unfriendly manner.

15.

unfavorably; unfortunately.

16.

with displeasure or offense.

EXPAND

17.

faultily; improperly.

18.

with difficulty or inconvenience; scarcely: Buying a new car is an expense we can ill afford.

COLLAPSE

Idiom

19.

ill at ease, socially uncomfortable; nervous: They were ill at ease because they didn't speak the language.

Origin:
1150–1200; Middle English ill(e) (noun and adj.) < Old Norse illr (adj.) ill, bad

Can be confused: ill, sick¹ (see synonym note at the current entry).

Synonyms
1. unhealthy, ailing, diseased, afflicted. Ill, sick mean being in bad health, not being well. Ill is the more formal word. In the U.S. the two words are used practically interchangeably except that sick is always used when the word modifies the following noun: He looks sick (ill); a sick person. In England, sick is not interchangeable with ill, but usually has the connotation of nauseous: She got sick and threw up. sick, however, is used before nouns just as in the U.S.: a sick man. 4. wrong, iniquitous. See bad¹. 8. hurt, pain, affliction, misery. 9. calamity. 10. depravity. 11. illness, affliction. 13. badly.

Antonyms
1. well, healthy. 4. good.

Example Sentences

McDonough is lying dangerously ill at his residence in this city.

Many will tell you that students are ill prepared for the demands of higher education.

Under the law, four terminally ill cancer patients.

EXPAND

McDonough is lying dangerously ill at his residence in this city.

Many will tell you that students are ill prepared for the demands of higher education.

Under the law, four terminally ill cancer patients.

The whale appeared to be ill from wounds that became infected as the rope dug into its skin.

Researchers uncover gene mutations that contribute to disease by screening the genomes of thousands of healthy and ill people.

He became ill and disabled and spent the last years of his life in an insane asylum.

How the parents of desperately ill children are rewriting the rules of the medical industry.

My ex's mother had one, but she was terminally ill and in the hospital long-term, which is not the case for me.

In some cases engines have even fallen off with no ill effect.

As a result the city was ill prepared for the unexpected quake.

Fifty years ago the mentally ill generally had two choices: for the affluent, there was psychotherapy, and for all.

People who are ill or have conditions that could be worsened by fasting are specifically exempted from taking part.

The day after an awesome tailgate party, you feel deathly ill.

That's a better plan of action than feeling uncomfortable and it could potentially defuse the situation without ill feeling.

Born of panic, the proposal was ill planned and ineptly explained:.

But before they had a chance to make any money, they fell ill from inhaling the mining dust.

Over the centuries, society's approaches to treating the mentally ill have shifted dramatically.

If a mount falls ill or even dies, its contrada is out of luck, and out of the race.

How many of those workers will become ill is difficult to foretell.

The focus of life shifts to waiting and caring and seeing to the comfort of the terminally ill one.

The soldiers are ill trained and chiefly preoccupied with finding food and shelter.

Under the current plan, the ill elderly top the list, while healthy.

Humans have a natural aversion to those who are ill.

She was often ill and became bedridden for an entire year after a bout with the measles.

The policy was originally designed to keep people who knew they'd become ill from using the military for free.

The act of mating with a species other than your own may not be as ill advised or peculiar as it seems.

After six hours of radically decreased heart rate and breathing, the mice were revived without any ill effect.

And indeed he did, with the exception of one man, who did fall ill and die.

Thousands more are turned away, deemed too ill to survive that operation and out of options.

The world is aglow with dire headlines about energy consumption and its ill effects.

It is part of the program so that the ill person feels safe.

The practice of the time when people were seriously ill.

The waterproof body survived a full submersive dunk with no ill effect.

Most evidence suggests ill effects from violent video games.

He told his children that it looked as if rain were on the way and went to bed, feeling ill.

But this power to do good may also be a power to do ill.

Temperature extremes have been known to have an ill effect on populations' health and mortality rates.

He had been a mentally ill drug addict for much of his later.

One person might lose his job, another might fall ill.

S aureus is a common bacterium-about a third of us carry it around without ill effect.

It is alot easier to get on the treadmill in the morning barefoot and with no ill effects.

The first is that the patterns, if ill chosen, can legitimately appear in uninfected files.

Reynolds bowed out when his wife became terminally ill.

The addition of weight below and behind the center of gravity reduces those ill effects by offsetting the baby's load.

Larger marine mammals and ducks, meanwhile, suffered ill effects because their prey was.

As small animals ingest that algae, they ingest that toxin, doesn't appear to have any ill effect on them.

The dilemma of the mentally ill is trying to determine which is worse: disorder symptoms or drug side effects.

It is not so uncommon to see acutely ill patients with life-threatening sepsis from colitis and need for urgent colectomy.

Ill making viruses are a variation of a normal and healthy process.

Our society is seriously mentally ill with respect to hemp.

Mentally ill people, especially schizophrenics are supposedly stereotypically good at art.

COLLAPSE

Dictionary.com Unabridged

contraction of I will.

Can be confused: aisle, I'll, isle.

Usage note
See contraction.

most illustrious.

Origin:
(def. 4) < Latin illustrissimus

Link To ill

Collins

World English Dictionary

ill (ɪl)

—*adj* , worse, worst
1.	(usually postpositive) not in good health; sick
2.	characterized by or intending evil, harm, etc; hostile: ill deeds
3.	causing or resulting in pain, harm, adversity, etc: ill effects
4.	ascribing or imputing evil to something referred to: ill repute
5.	promising an unfavourable outcome; unpropitious: an ill omen
6.	harsh; lacking kindness: ill will
7.	not up to an acceptable standard; faulty: ill manners
8.	ill at ease unable to relax; uncomfortable

—n
9.	evil or harm: to wish a person ill
10.	a mild disease
11.	misfortune; trouble

—*adv*
12.	badly: the title ill befits him
13.	with difficulty; hardly: he can ill afford the money
14.	not rightly: she ill deserves such good fortune

[C11 (in the sense: evil): from Old Norse illr bad]

I'll (aɪl)

—*contraction of*
	I will or I shall

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

ill

c.1200, "morally evil" (other 13c. senses were "malevolent, hurtful, unfortunate, difficult"), from O.N. illr "ill, bad," of unknown origin. Not related to evil. Main modern sense of "sick, unhealthy, unwell" is first recorded c.1460, probably related to O.N. idiom "it is bad to me." Illness "disease,

EXPAND

sickness" is from 1689. Slang sense of "very good, cool" is 1980s.

COLLAPSE

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

ill (ĭl)
adj. worse (wûrs), worst (wûrst)

Not healthy; sick.
Not normal, as a condition; unsound.

n.
A disease or illness, especially of animals.

Slang Dictionary

ill definition

mod.
lame; dull; bad. : That broad is truly ill and has a face that would stop a clock.
mod.
and illing; illin'. excellent; cool. : We had an ill time at your party. Loved it!

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source

American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

ill

In addition to the idioms beginning with ill, also see under get sick.