sick
/ˈsɪk/ adjective, noun, verb, proper noun
Also a form of sic
Forms sicker sickest sicks sicking sicked
- adjective In poor health; ill. “We have to care for the sick.”
- adjective [with with] Afflicted by (a specific condition, usually medical). “She was sick all day with the flu.”
- adjective Having an urge to vomit. “My daughter was violently sick three times in the night.”
- adjective (colloquial) Mentally unstable, disturbed. “You sick bastard!”
- adjective (colloquial) In bad taste. “That’s a sick joke.”
- adjective [with of] Tired of or annoyed by (something that has lasted a long time or often recurs). “sick and tired of the whining—sick of waiting—'sick of politics”
- adjective (slang) Very good, excellent, awesome, badass. “This tune is sick.”
- adjective In poor condition. “sick building syndrome; my car is looking pretty sick; my job prospects are pretty sick”
- noun (UK, Australia, colloquial) Vomit.
- noun (UK, colloquial) (especially in the phrases on the sick and on long-term sick) Any of various current or former benefits or allowances paid by the Government to support the sick, disabled or incapacitated.
- verb (UK, Australia, colloquial) To vomit. “I woke up at 4 am and sicked on the floor.”
- verb (obsolete except in dialect, intransitive) To fall sick; to sicken.
- proper noun A surname from German.
Synonyms
ill not well poorly sickly unwell diseased disease-ridden infect infected morbid morbific morbose unhealthy nauseated barfy mawkish nauseatic pukey pukish queasy vomit vomit up purge cast cat be sick disgorge regorge retch puke
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English sik, sike, seek, seke, seok, from Old English sēoc (“sick, ill”), from Proto-West Germanic *seuk, from Proto-Germanic *seukaz, from Proto-Indo-European *sewg- (“to be troubled or grieved”).
See also West Frisian siik, Dutch ziek, German siech, Norwegian Bokmål syk, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish sjuk, Danish syg; also Middle Irish socht (“silence, depression”), Old Armenian հիւծանիմ (hiwcanim, “to be weakening”).
The "very good, excellent" sense is an ameliorative semantic shift from the original sense of "in poor health". Compare similar semantic development in terrific and wicked.
Variant of sic, itself an alteration of seek.
* As a Dutch and German surname, shortened from names like Siegfried, Siegmund and similar. Compare Sieck, Zeek.
* As a Czech surname, Americanized from Šik; also Slovene, Carpathian Rusyn, and Serbo-Croatian Šic, converged from several origins such as síč (“sower”), the source of Schuetz, or Slavicized from Hungarian szűcs (“furrier”).
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Affected with disease of any kind; ill; indisposed; not in health.
- adjective Affected with, or attended by, nausea; inclined to vomit; as, sick at the stomach; a sick headache.
- noun Sickness. [Obs.] Chaucer.
- verb To fall sick; to sicken. [Obs.] Shak.
Etymology [OE. sek, sik, ill, AS. seóc; akin to OS. siok, seoc, OFries. siak, D. ziek, G. siech, OHG. sioh, Icel. sj, Sw. sjuk, Dan. syg, Goth. siuks ill, siukan to be ill.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “sick”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details