English
ill
see also: ILL
Etymology

From Middle English ille, from Old Norse illr, illa, ilt (whence Icelandic illur, Norwegian ille, Danish ilde), from Proto-Germanic *ilhilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁elḱ- (whence Latin ulcus, Ancient Greek ἕλκος, Sanskrit अर्शस्.

Pronunciation Adjective

ill

  1. (obsolete) Evil; wicked (of people). [13th]
    • 1709 December 5, Francis Atterbury, A Sermon Preached before the Sons of the Clergy, at their Anniversary-Meeting, in the Church of St. Paul:
      St. Paul chose to magnify his office when ill men conspired to lessen it.
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC ↗:
      A man who is conscious of having an ill character, cannot justly be angry with those who neglect and slight him.
  2. (archaic) Morally reprehensible (of behaviour etc.); blameworthy. [from 13th c.]
  3. Indicative of unkind or malevolent intentions; harsh, cruel. [from 14th c.]
    He suffered from ill treatment.
  4. Unpropitious, unkind, faulty, not up to reasonable standard.
    ill manners; ill will
  5. Unwell in terms of health or physical condition; sick. [from 15th c.]
    Mentally ill people.
    I've been ill with the flu for the past few days.
  6. Having an urge to vomit. [from 20th c.]
    Seeing those pictures made me ill.
  7. (slang, mostly, hip-hop) Sublime, with the connotation of being so in a singularly creative way.
  8. (slang) Extremely bad (bad enough to make one ill). Generally used indirectly with to be.
    That band was ill.
  9. (dated) Unwise; not a good idea.
    • 1672, George Swinnock, The Incomparableness of God:
      Oh that when the devil and flesh entice the sinner to sport with and make a mock of sin, Prov. x. 23, he would but consider, it is ill jesting with edged tools, it is ill jesting with unquenchable burnings; […]
    • 1914, Indian Ink, volume 1, page 32:
      They arrested everybody—and it is ill to resist a drunken Tommy with a loaded rifle!
  10. (Appalachia) Bad-tempered.
Synonyms Antonyms
  • (antonym(s) of “suffering from a disease”): fine, hale, healthy, in good health, well
  • (antonym(s) of “bad”): good
  • (antonym(s) of “in hip-hop slang: sublime”): wack
Translations Translations Adverb

ill

  1. Not well; imperfectly, badly
    • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “A Proposal of Marriage”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC ↗, page 126 ↗:
      He would have conversed as usual; but his attempts were so ill seconded, that he was fain to take refuge in the letters that lay beside him.
    • 1859 December 12, Charles Dickens [et al.], “(please specify the name of the story)”, in Charles Dickens, editor, The Haunted House. The Extra Christmas Number of All the Year Round […], volume II, London: […] C[harles] Whiting, […], →OCLC ↗:
      Within, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal. The slowly changing shadows waved on it from the heavy trees, were doleful in the last degree; the house was ill-placed, ill-built, ill-planned, and ill-fitted.
    • 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page 3:
      In both groups, however, we find copious and intricate speciation so that, often, species limits are narrow and ill defined.
    • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 541:
      His inflexibility and blindness ill become a leader, for a leader must temper justice with mercy.
    • 2006, Julia Borossa (translator), Monique Canto-Sperber (quoted author), in Libération, 2002 February 2, quoted in Élisabeth Badinter (quoting author), Dead End Feminism, Polity, ISBN 9780745633800, page 40 ↗:
      Is it because this supposes an undifferentiated violence towards others and oneself that I could ill imagine in a woman?
Synonyms Antonyms Translations Noun

ill

  1. (often pluralized) Trouble; distress; misfortune; adversity.
    Music won't solve all the world's ills, but it can make them easier to bear.
    • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act II, scene i]:
      That makes us rather bear those ills we have / Than fly to others that we know not of.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter IV, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC ↗:
      Then he commenced to talk, really talk. and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.
  2. Harm or injury.
    I wouldn't want you to do me ill.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC ↗, Romans 13:10 ↗:
      Loue worketh no ill to his neighbour, therefore loue is the fulfilling of the Law.
  3. Evil; moral wrongfulness.
    • 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy. […], London: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1676, →OCLC ↗, (please specify the page number):
      Strong virtue, like strong nature, struggles still, / Exerts itself, and then throws off the ill.
  4. A physical ailment; an illness.
    I am incapacitated by rheumatism and other ills.
  5. (US, slang, uncountable) PCP, phencyclidine.
Translations Verb

ill (ills, present participle illing; simple past and past participle illed)

  1. (intransitive, slang, dated) To behave aggressively.
ILL
Noun

ill (plural ills)

  1. Initialism of interlibrary loan


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