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What is the difference between ill and sick?

ill | sick |

Sick is a synonym of ill.

Sick is a antonym of ill.



As adjectives the difference between ill and sick

is that ill is evil; wicked (of people) while sick is in poor health.

As nouns the difference between ill and sick

is that ill is trouble; distress; misfortune; adversity while sick is sick people in general as a group.

As an adverb ill

is not well; imperfectly, badly; hardly.

As a verb sick is

to vomit.

ill

English

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • (label) Evil; wicked (of people).
  • * (Francis Atterbury) (1663-1732)
    • St. Paul chose to magnify his office when ill men conspired to lessen it.
  • (label) Morally reprehensible (of behaviour etc.); blameworthy.
  • * 1999 , (George RR Martin), A Clash of Kings , Bantam 2011, p. 2:
    • ‘Go bring her. It is ill to keep a lady waiting.’
  • Indicative of unkind or malevolent intentions; harsh, cruel.
  • Unpropitious, unkind, faulty, not up to reasonable standard.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1959, author=(Georgette Heyer), title=(The Unknown Ajax), chapter=1
    • , passage=
  • Unwell in terms of health or physical condition; sick.
  • Having an urge to vomit.
  • (label) Sublime, with the connotation of being so in a singularly creative way. [This sense sometimes declines in AAVE as ill', ''comparative'' '''iller''', ''superlative'' ' illest .]
  • * 1994 , Biggie Smalls, The What
    • Biggie Smalls is the illest / Your style is played out, like Arnold wonderin "Whatchu talkin bout, Willis?"
  • (label) Extremely bad (bad enough to make one ill). Generally used indirectly with to be .

    • Usage notes

    * The comparative forms iller and illest are used in American English, but less than one fourth as frequently as the "more" and "most" forms.

    Synonyms

    * (suffering from a disease''): diseased, poorly (''UK ), sick, under the weather (informal), unwell * (having an urge to vomit ): disgusted, nauseated, nauseous, sick, sickened * (bad ): bad, mal- * (in hip-hop slang: sublime ): dope * See also

    Antonyms

    * (suffering from a disease ): fine, hale, healthy, in good health, well * (having an urge to vomit ): * (bad ): good * (in hip-hop slang: sublime ): wack

    Derived terms

    * be ill * fall ill * ill at ease * ill effects * illness * ill wind * lie ill in one's mouth * mentally ill * be taken ill

    References

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • Not well; imperfectly, badly; hardly.
  • *
    • In both groups, however, we find copious and intricate speciation so that, often, species limits are narrow and ill defined.
  • * 1994 , Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom , Abacus 2010, p. 541:
    • His inflexibility and blindness ill become a leader, for a leader must temper justice with mercy.
  • * 2006 , Julia Borossa (translator), Monique Canto-Sperber (quoted author), in (quoting author), ''Dead End Feminism , Polity, ISBN 9780745633800, page 40:
    • Is it because this supposes an undifferentiated violence towards others and oneself that I could ill imagine in a woman?

    Synonyms

    * illy

    Antonyms

    * well

    Derived terms

    * bode ill * ill afford * ill-formed * ill-gotten * ill-thought-out

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (often pluralized) Trouble; distress; misfortune; adversity.
  • * (William Shakespeare)
    • That makes us rather bear those ills we have / Than fly to others that we know not of.
  • * , chapter=4
    • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Then he commenced to talk, really talk. and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.}}
  • Harm or injury.
  • Evil; moral wrongfulness.
  • * (John Dryden)
    • Strong virtue, like strong nature, struggles still, / Exerts itself, and then throws off the ill .
  • A physical ailment; an illness.
  • Unfavorable remarks or opinions.
  • (US, slang) PCP, phencyclidine.

    • Derived terms

    * for good or ill

    References

    * Oxford English Dictionary , 2nd ed., 1989. * Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary , 1987-1996.

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    sick

    English

    (wikipedia sick)

    Etymology 1

    Middle English sek, sik, from (etyl) .

    Adjective

    (er)
  • In poor health.
  • * {{quote-book, year=a1420, year_published=1894, author=The British Museum Additional MS, 12,056
    • , by=(Lanfranc of Milan), title=Lanfranc's "Science of cirurgie." citation , chapter=Wounds complicated by the Dislocation of a Bone, isbn=1163911380 , publisher=K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co, location=London, editor=Robert von Fleischhacker , page=63, passage=Ne take noon hede to brynge togidere þe parties of þe boon þat is to-broken or dislocate, til viij. daies ben goon in þe wyntir, & v. in þe somer; for þanne it schal make quytture, and be sikir from swellynge; & þanne brynge togidere þe brynkis eiþer þe disiuncture after þe techynge þat schal be seid in þe chapitle of algebra.}}
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
    • , chapter=7 citation , passage=‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared. […]’}}
  • (colloquial) Mentally unstable, disturbed.
  • (colloquial) In bad taste.
  • Having an urge to vomit.
  • (slang) Very good, excellent, awesome.
  • In poor condition.
  • (agriculture) Failing to sustain adequate harvests of crop, usually specified.
  • Tired of or annoyed by something.
    • Synonyms
    * (in poor health) ill, not well, poorly (British), sickly, unwell * (mentally unstable) disturbed, twisted, warped. * (having an urge to vomit) nauseated, nauseous * rad, wicked * See also
    Antonyms
    * (in poor health) fit, healthy, well * (excellent) crap, naff, uncool
    Derived terms
    * airsick * be sick * brainsick * carsick * dogsick * fall sick * heartsick * homesick * iron-sick, iron sick, ironsick * junk sick * lovesick * nailsick, nail sick, nailsick * seasick * sick and tired * sick and twisted * sick as a dog * sick bag * sickbay * sickbed * sick building syndrome * sick day * sicken * sickening * sickhouse * sickie * sickish * sick joke * sickly * sickness * sick note * sick pay * sick puppy * sicko * sickout * sickroom * sick to one's stomach * soulsick * thoughtsick

    Noun

    (-)
  • Sick people in general as a group.
    • We have to cure the sick .
  • (colloquial) vomit.
    • He lay there in a pool of his own sick .
    Synonyms
    * (vomit) See

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To vomit.
  • :I woke up at 4 am and sicked on the floor.
  • (obsolete) To fall sick; to sicken.
  • * circa 1598 , William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, part 2 :
    • Our great-grandsire, Edward, sick'd and died.

    Etymology 2

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (rare)
  • * 1920 , James Oliver Curwood, "Back to God's Country"
    • "Wapi," she almost screamed, "go back! Sick' 'em, Wapi—'''sick''' 'em—'''sick''' 'em—' sick 'em!"
  • * 1938 , Eugene Gay-Tifft, translator, The Saga of Frank Dover by Johannes Buchholtz, 2005 Kessinger Publishing edition, ISBN 141915222X, page 125,
    • When we were at work swabbing the deck, necessarily barelegged, Pelle would sick the dog on us; and it was an endless source of pleasure to him when the dog succeeded in fastening its teeth in our legs and making the blood run down our ankles.
  • * 1957 , , 1991 LB Books edition, page 154,
    • "...is just something God sicks on people who have the gall to accuse Him of having created an ugly world."
  • * 2001 (publication date), Anna Heilman, Never Far Away: The Auschwitz Chronicles of Anna Heilman , University of Calgary Press, ISBN 1552380408, page 82,
    • Now they find a new entertainment: they sick the dog on us.
    1000 English basic words