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Sickly vs Unthriving - What's the difference?

sickly | unthriving |

As adjectives the difference between sickly and unthriving

is that sickly is frequently ill; often in poor health; given to becoming ill while unthriving is failing to thrive; weak or sickly.

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.

    unthriving

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Failing to thrive; weak or sickly.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1797, author=An English Lady, title=A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795,, chapter=, edition= citation
    • , passage=In every place where there are half a dozen houses is planted an unthriving tree of liberty, which seems to wither under the baneful influence of the bonnet rouge . }}
  • *{{quote-book, year=, author=Joseph Conrad, title=Under Western Eyes, chapter=, edition= citation
    • , passage=He stopped short and looked at the brick wall of the terrace, faced with shallow arches, meagrely clothed by a few unthriving creepers, with an ill-kept narrow flower-bed along its foot. }}