ill
adjective
Showing results for ill.
Search instead for
Illu.
ill
1 American
[il]
/ ɪl /
adjective
worse,
worst,
iller,
illest
-
of unsound physical or mental health; unwell; sick.
She felt ill, so her teacher sent her to the nurse.
-
objectionable; unsatisfactory; poor; faulty.
ill manners.
-
ill feeling.
-
of ill repute.
- Synonyms:
- iniquitous, wrong
- Antonyms:
- good
-
ill fortune.
-
of inferior worth or ability; unskillful; inexpert.
an ill example of scholarship.
-
His mom is the illest cook.
noun
-
ills
plural
-
an unfavorable opinion or statement.
I can speak no ill of her.
-
harm or injury.
His remarks did much ill.
- Synonyms:
- misery, affliction, pain, hurt
-
trouble, distress, or misfortune.
Many ills befell him.
- Synonyms:
- calamity
-
evil.
to know the difference between good and ill.
- Synonyms:
- depravity
-
sickness or disease.
- Synonyms:
- affliction, illness
adverb
-
in an ill manner.
-
unsatisfactorily; poorly.
It ill befits a man to betray old friends.
-
in a hostile or unfriendly manner.
-
unfavorably; unfortunately.
-
with displeasure or offense.
-
faultily; improperly.
-
with difficulty or inconvenience; scarcely.
Buying a new car is an expense we can ill afford.
idioms
I'll
2
American
[ahyl]
/ aɪl /
ill.
3
American
abbreviation
-
illustrated.
-
illustration.
-
illustrator.
-
most illustrious.
Ill.
4
American
abbreviation
ill
1
British
/ ɪl /
adjective
-
(usually postpositive) not in good health; sick
-
characterized by or intending evil, harm, etc; hostile
ill deeds
-
causing or resulting in pain, harm, adversity, etc
ill effects
-
ascribing or imputing evil to something referred to
ill repute
-
promising an unfavourable outcome; unpropitious
an ill omen
-
harsh; lacking kindness
ill will
-
not up to an acceptable standard; faulty
ill manners
-
unable to relax; uncomfortable
noun
-
evil or harm
to wish a person ill
-
a mild disease
-
misfortune; trouble
adverb
-
badly
the title ill befits him
-
with difficulty; hardly
he can ill afford the money
-
not rightly
she ill deserves such good fortune
Ill.
2
British
abbreviation
I'll
3
British
/ aɪl /
contraction
ill
More Idioms
Grammar
See well 1.
Usage
What are other ways to say ill? The adjective ill is defined as “evil; wicked; bad.” However, it’s not used in exactly the same way as any of those synonyms! Learn the difference among these terms on Thesaurus.com.
Synonym Usage
Ill, sick mean being in bad health, not being well. Ill is the more formal word. In the U. S. the two words are used practically interchangeably except that sick is always used when the word modifies the following noun: He looks sick ( ill ); a sick person. In England, sick is not interchangeable with ill, but usually has the connotation of nauseous: She got sick and threw up. sick, however, is used before nouns just as in the U. S.: a sick man.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of ill1
1150–1200; Middle English ill ( e ) (noun and adj.) < Old Norse illr (adj.) ill, bad
Origin of ill.3
ill. ( def. 4 ) < Latin illustrissimus
Explanation
If you're ill, you're unwell, or sick. Being ill is a good excuse for missing work or school. You might get ill after being sneezed on by someone with a cold; or eating street food in a foreign country; or for no reason that you can point to. People can be mentally ill as well as physically ill, from depression or anxiety among other ailments. Ill can also mean "bad" in various ways, including when you suffer ill effects from going too long without sleep, or exercise ill judgment when you buy $500 worth of lottery tickets.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In addition to worrying about his ill daughter, Bach mutters and growls about the Prussian troops rampaging through his town.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
By contesting the decision, you might have supplanted positive memories with ill will and friction.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 24, 2026
"To get that, though, you need to have people talking to each other, and you've got to more actively manage sickness and ill health in the workplace."
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026
From a combination of mold exposure and severe burnout from filming “After Midnight” on weekdays and performing in different cities on weekends, she fell ill for months and was forced to take a break.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
They were pouring out the door now, leaning on the arms of nurses and hospital helpers, the old, the ill.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
"If someone calls me an influencer I'll take it as a compliment. Because the real influence I can have is to make people think for themselves."
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2026
I’ll probably get up around 1 or 2 p.m. because I stay up until about 3 or 4 a.m.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
If they want me to go to New York, I'll go.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026
Yes, I’ll say it for you: Beware the hype over the next teenage soccer phenom.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
I pray, “Don’t die, Caesar. Don’t die. I’ll get you home.”
From "Will’s Race for Home" by Jewell Parker Rhodes
"There was a glint of fear. They were dour. This was something more than someone being ill. It was something that affected them."
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
"He was critically ill. His heart stopped as soon as he arrived. We had to perform CPR," said lead author Ankit Bharat, a thoracic surgeon at Northwestern University.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 18, 2026
"Tatler, you should be ashamed putting this on the cover. A child would have done a better job. I’m so angry you've done this whilst she is so ill. Shame on you."
From Salon ● May 23, 2024
“We have so appreciated all of the prayers and support from friends who knew he was very ill. Although it is hard for us to say goodbye, his peaceful passing was a blessing for him.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 2024
“No, she’s not ill. She’s fine, we think,” Mrs. Billups was saying in her most professional-sounding teacher voice.
From "Out of My Mind" by Sharon M. Draper
The company expects eventually to increase annual production capacity at its plant in Normal, Ill., to 215,000 vehicles, adding potentially another 300,000 in capacity through its plant in Stanton Springs, Ga.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 17, 2026
The effort is attracting customers like Lexi Carman, who recently drove 30 minutes from Beecher, Ill., to bring her two kids and two nieces to the Schererville location.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026
The Springdale, Ark.-based company said it is closing its Joslin, Ill., plant, which employs more than 2,000 people and can kill about 3,000 cattle a day, according to an internal company memo.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Isabella Villareal practiced with the Los Angeles Queens for the first time on Saturday morning, hours before the team’s first game.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2026
I was born on March 9, 1943 in Chicago, Ill. U.S.A.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
De Zerbi may feel he has addressed some of the ills in a squad that has finished 17th in the Premier League two seasons in succession.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
As Dan Kois illustrates in this ode to kicking back with friends, spending unstructured time together is a blessedly simple cure to the ills of modern life.
From Slate ● Jul. 10, 2026
As Norway advance, is Wright correct about Scottish football's ills?
From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2026
Ultimately, a ballot initiative won’t cure the ills that plague healthcare in the United States, said the Lown Institute’s Saini.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2026
Without equality, eugenics would inevitably falter on the false premise that social ills, such as vagrancy, pauperism, deviance, alcoholism, and feeblemindedness were genetic ills—while, in fact, they merely reflected inequality.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
"If you have a generally iller population, that's not good for the residents, it's not good for productivity, it's not good for the economy.'"
From BBC ● May 25, 2023
This gave him an unnatural appearance and made him look iller than ever.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 30, 2019
He got iller and iller and iller, and of course he died in the beginning of 2015 when some of the other things had started appearing in the press.
From BBC ● Nov. 23, 2016
Last year began with my being ill, kept on with my being iller, then I was unwell, followed by being poorly with a tiny interlude of infirmity.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 15, 2012
A lot of lassies like yon will be iller to keep together than a flock of sheep.
From The Lady of the Shroud by Bram Stoker
The Black neighborhoods like Baldwin Hills Estates, Ladera Heights and View Park all sit hillside with some of the illest views in the city.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2026
His wife was told she should prepare for the worst, with staff describing her husband as "one of the illest people they'd ever seen".
From BBC ● May 21, 2024
Rapper Travis Scott told his nearly 12 million followers on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, that Monday “might be one for the illest days in women’s sports historyyyyyyy.”
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 2, 2024
It’s one of the illest, if not the illest Caribbean food spots in the city.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 22, 2022
A lingring death maye auaile my soule, but it is the illest of ills that can befortune my bodie.
From The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse by Edmund Gosse
In humans, mutations in the FBXW7 gene in breast cancer are associated with worse prognosis - paralleling the change seen in cats.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 27, 2026
She said water levels in the city appeared to be worse than in 2011, when Bangkok was impacted by nationwide flooding.
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2026
Sources could be accused of violating censorship laws—or, worse, committing treason.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
Citizens who aren’t likely to notice when their local newspaper becomes a bit more bare-bones, or that the already byzantine healthcare system becomes slightly harder to navigate, will definitely notice when their lunch gets worse.
From Salon ● Sep. 25, 2026
He came out of the mess worse than Grandpa and I did.
From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls
When a clown’s only trick is shouting into a live microphone, the absolute worst thing that can happen is for the cameras to simply turn off.
From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2026
The bond selloff of 2022 was by some measures the worst in U.S. history.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2026
But Piastri had some kind of meltdown on the streets of Baku, what he described after arriving back in the city this week as "the worst race of my career".
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2026
In the book, MacLachlan recalls being utterly dumbfounded at having been asked to do something so oblivious at best and cruel at worst.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
Emma uses air quotes. “…in ‘whatever this place is called’ would be the worst thing imaginable.
From "South of Somewhere" by Kalena Miller
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
