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Valetudinarian vs Valetudinary - What's the difference?

valetudinarian | valetudinary |

As adjectives the difference between valetudinarian and valetudinary

is that valetudinarian is sickly, infirm, of ailing health while valetudinary is sickly, infirm, valetudinarian.

As a noun valetudinarian

is a person in poor health or sickly, especially one who is constantly obsessed with their state of health.

valetudinarian

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • sickly, infirm, of ailing health
    • The valetudinarian habit of discussing his health had grown on Rose... -- Florence Anne Sellar MacCunn, Sir Walter Scott's Friends, 1910, p. 234
  • * Macaulay
    • The virtue which the world wants is a healthful virtue, not a valetudinarian virtue.
  • being overly worried about one's health

    • Synonyms

    * hypochondriac

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A person in poor health or sickly, especially one who is constantly obsessed with their state of health
    • The most uninformed mind, with a healthy body, is happier than the wisest valetudinarian .'' -- Thomas Jefferson, ''The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1904), p. 168.
    She affected to be spunky about her ailments and afflictions, but she was in fact an utterly self-centered valetudinarian'' (Louis Auchincloss) ''The American Heritage Dictionary
    The cuisine, of course, would not be such as would raise water bubbles in the mouth of a valetudinarian ; the carniverous propensity will mostly be gratified by steak which, when cut, will resemble the Mudhook Yacht Club burgee of ''rouge et noir''; and savory soups and luscious salmon will be luxuries only obtainable in "cannister" form.'' -- Dixon Kemp, ''A Manual of Yacht and Boat Sailing (4th Ed.), 1884.

    Synonyms

    * hypochondriac

    References

    *

    valetudinary

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete) sickly, infirm, valetudinarian
  • *{{quote-book, year=1727, author=Thomas Carlyle, title=History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.), chapter=, edition= citation
    • , passage="His Majesty began to become valetudinary ; and the hypochondria which tormented him rendered his humor very melancholy. }}
  • *{{quote-book, year=1887, author=Edmund Burke, title=The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12), chapter=, edition= citation
    • , passage=It produces a weak valetudinary state of body, attended by all those horrid disorders, and yet more horrid methods of cure, which are the result of luxury on the one hand, and the weak and ridiculous efforts of human art on the other. }}

    Derived terms

    * valetudinariness