English Explanatory Dictionary

ill

English dictionary entry

Meanings

adj
  1. Evil; wicked (of people).
  2. Morally reprehensible (of behaviour etc.); blameworthy.
  3. Indicative of unkind or malevolent intentions; harsh, cruel.
  4. Unpropitious, unkind, faulty, not up to reasonable standard.
  5. Unwell in terms of health or physical condition; sick.
  6. Nauseated; having an urge to vomit.
  7. Sublime, with the connotation of being so in a singularly creative way.
  8. Extremely bad (bad enough to make one ill). Generally used indirectly with to be.
  9. Unwise; not a good idea.
  10. Bad-tempered.
adv
  1. Not well; imperfectly, badly
noun
  1. Trouble; distress; misfortune; adversity.
  2. Harm or injury.
  3. Evil; moral wrongfulness.
  4. A physical ailment; an illness.
  5. PCP, phencyclidine.
verb
  1. To behave aggressively.
noun
  1. Initialism of interlibrary loan.
name
  1. A river in France, tributary to the Rhine.

Pronunciation

/ɪl/ en-us-ill.ogg

Word forms

ill iller more ill illest most ill worse worst ills illing illed the Ill

Etymology

From Middle English ille (“evil; wicked”), from Old Norse íllr (adjective), ílla (adverb), ílt (noun), from Proto-Germanic *ilhilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁elḱ- (whence Latin ulcus (“sore”), Ancient Greek ἕλκος (hélkos, “wound, ulcer”), Sanskrit अर्शस् (árśas, “hemorrhoids”)). Cognates Cognate with Scots and Yola ill, Danish ilde (“bad”), Faroese, Icelandic illur (“bad, ill, wicked”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk ille (“bad”), Swedish illa (“badly; poorly”).

Synonyms

bad mal- crank crook green about the gills icky ill indisposed infirm like death warmed over lousy maladive mawkish off one's feed on the Pat and Mick out of sorts Pat and Mick punk puny queer ropy rough sickish sickly sick as a dog sick as a parrot tumid unhealthy valetudinarian valetudinary disgusted nauseated nauseous sick sicken dope diseased poorly under the weather unwell ailing illy

Antonyms

fine hale healthy in good health well good wack

Derived words

be taken ill bird of ill omen do ill fall ill house of ill fame ill-adapted illbeing ill-being illbient ill blood illderly ill-ease ill effect ill effects ill fame ill-famed illfare ill feeling ill-fortune ill health ill humor ill humour illish ill-looking ill luck ill name illness ill news spreads apace ill off ill-omened ill-repute ill-scented illsome ill-starred illth ill-thrift ill-treatment ill turn ill-usage ill-use ill will ill-willed ill-willing ill wind ill-wish illwisher ill-wisher in ill part it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest it's an ill wind it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good it's an ill wind that blows no good it's an ill wind that blows no one any good lie ill in one's mouth mentally ill moorill nonill quarter-ill take ill terminally ill

Translations

Acehnese: saket Afrikaans: siek Aghwan: 𐔱𐔰𐕅 Aklanon: masakit Albanian: i sëmurë Gheg Albanian: smu Amharic: ሕሙም Arabic: مَرِيض Arabic: عيان Arabic: مريض Chadian Arabic: مرضان Armenian: հիվանդ Old Armenian: հիւանդ Old Armenian: խօթ Aromanian: lãndzit Aromanian: lãntsid Aromanian: lãndzidzãt Aromanian: niputut Aromanian: shuplicat Aromanian: hivrit Asturian: enfermu Azerbaijani: xəstə Azerbaijani: naxoş Bashkir: ауырыу Bashkir: сирле Bashkir: сырхау Basque: gaixo Belarusian: хво́ры Bengali: অসুস্থ Bislama: siki Bulgarian: бо́лен Burmese: နာ Burmese: နေထိုင်မကောင်း Catalan: malalt Chickasaw: abika Chinese Cantonese: 病 Chinese: бин Chinese: бемар Chinese Mandarin: 病 Choctaw: abeka Chukchi: тъытԓьэн Czech: nemocný Danish: syg Dutch: ziek Dutch: zieke Dutch: krank Elfdalian: klien Elfdalian: siuok Erzya: ормав Esperanto: malsana Estonian: haige Faroese: sjúkur Finnish: sairas French: malade West-Frisian: siik Galician: enfermo Galician: doente Bulgarian: беда Bulgarian: трудност Bulgarian: мъчнотия German: Übel Macedonian: зло Polish: problem
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on I Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary