ill
/ɪl/ adjective, adverb, noun, verb, proper noun
Forms iller illest worse worst ills illing illed the Ill
- adjective (obsolete) Evil; wicked (of people).
- adjective (archaic) Morally reprehensible (of behaviour etc.); blameworthy.
- adjective Indicative of unkind or malevolent intentions; harsh, cruel. “He suffered from ill treatment.”
- adjective Unpropitious, unkind, faulty, not up to reasonable standard. “ill manners; ill will”
- adjective Unwell in terms of health or physical condition; sick. “mentally ill people”
- adjective Nauseated; having an urge to vomit. “Seeing those pictures made me ill.”
- adjective (slang, chiefly hip-hop) Sublime, with the connotation of being so in a singularly creative way. “This is the illest beat I've ever heard.”
- adjective (slang) Extremely bad (bad enough to make one ill). Generally used indirectly with to be. “That band was ill.”
- adverb Not well; imperfectly, badly
- noun (often pluralized) Trouble; distress; misfortune; adversity. “Music won't solve all the world's ills, but it can make them easier to bear.”
- noun Harm or injury. “I wouldn't want you to do me ill.”
- noun Evil; moral wrongfulness.
- noun A physical ailment; an illness. “I am incapacitated by rheumatism and other ills.”
- noun (US, slang, uncountable) PCP, phencyclidine.
- verb (intransitive, slang, dated) To behave aggressively.
- proper noun A river in France, tributary to the Rhine.
Synonyms
disgusted nauseated nauseous sick sicken dope diseased poorly under the weather unwell ailing bad mal- crank crook green about the gills icky indisposed infirm like death warmed over ailment complaint inauspicious ominous badly
Antonyms
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”)).
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”).
From French Ill.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Contrary to good, in a physical sense; contrary or opposed to advantage, happiness, etc.; bad; evil; unfortunate; disagreeable; unfavorable.
- adjective Contrary to good, in a moral sense; evil; wicked; wrong; iniquitious; naughtly; bad; improper.
- noun Whatever annoys or impairs happiness, or prevents success; evil of any kind; misfortune; calamity; disease; pain; as, the ills of humanity.
- noun Whatever is contrary to good, in a moral sense; wickedness; depravity; iniquity; wrong; evil.
Etymology [OE. ill, ille, Icel. illr; akin to Sw. illa, adv., Dan. ilde, adv.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “ill”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details