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Sickly vs Listless - What's the difference?

sickly | listless | Related terms |

Sickly is a related term of listless.


As adjectives the difference between sickly and listless

is that sickly is frequently ill; often in poor health; given to becoming ill while listless is lacking energy, enthusiasm, or liveliness.

As a verb sickly

is to make sickly.

As an adverb sickly

is in a sick manner.

sickly

English

Adjective

(er)
  • Frequently ill; often in poor health; given to becoming ill.
    • a sickly child
  • Having the appearance of sickness or ill health; appearing ill, infirm or unhealthy; pale.
    • a sickly plant
  • * Dryden
    • The moon grows sickly at the sight of day.
  • Weak; faint; suggesting unhappiness.
    • a sickly smile
  • Somewhat sick; disposed to illness; attended with disease.
  • * Shakespeare
    • This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
  • Tending to produce disease.
    • a sickly''' autumn; a '''sickly climate
    (Cowper)
  • Tending to produce nausea; sickening.
    • a sickly''' smell; '''sickly sentimentality

    Related terms

    * sickliness

    Verb

  • To make sickly.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
  • * 1840 , S. M. Heaton, George Heaton, Thoughts on the Litany, by a naval officer's orphan daughter (page 58)
  • * 1871 , Gail Hamilton, Country living and country thinking (page 109)
    • He evidently thinks the sweet little innocents never heard or thought of such a thing before, and would go on burying their curly heads in books, and sicklying their rosy faces with "the pale cast of thought" till the end of time

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • In a sick manner.
  • * 2010 , Rowan Somerville, The End of Sleep (page 66)
    • The creaseless horizontal face of the giant smiled sickly , leering.

    listless

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Lacking energy, enthusiasm, or liveliness.
  • * 1818 , , Frankenstein , ch. 18:
    • I passed whole days on the lake alone in a little boat, watching the clouds and listening to the rippling of the waves, silent and listless .
  • * 1861 , , The Stokesley Secret , ch. 6:
    • What an entirely different set of beings were those Stokesley children in lesson-time. . . . Poor, listless , stolid, deplorable logs, with bowed backs and crossed ankles, pipy voices and heavy eyes!
  • * 1901 , , The Hero , ch. 21:
    • The scene with Mrs. Wallace had broken his spirit, and he was listless now, indifferent to what happened.
  • * 2005 Nov. 29, Aryn Baker, " John Hardy: Bali Guy," Time :
    • “Listless , inattentive, distracted,” he recited. “A daydreamer. Tries his best, but is too slow.”

    Derived terms

    * listlessly * listlessness

    Anagrams

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