ill
adjective
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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:
It takes time for parents to understand the level of concern I have, even when their child is physically ill in the hospital requiring ongoing care.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
The dose was low enough that the mothers did not become significantly ill.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 25, 2026
Last year, two women became critically ill at a longevity conference in Las Vegas after they received peptide injections at a booth.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
It comes just a few days after Yates fell ill and vomited after stage 16's time trial.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
He relished every berry and showed no ill effects.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
Tell me who you’re putting on these groups, he said, and I’ll tell you what they’ll say.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
Starting Aug. 4, I’ll be in your inbox every Tuesday as I officially take the reins as Don’t Short Yourself’s regular writer.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026
For example, I’ll tell them that some children get a fever after a vaccine, which is OK.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
Having left university, he went on to join the cast of the BBC radio show I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, which featured many of the Footlights performers.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
“Not yet. I’ll call them again tomorrow,” Aunt J replies.
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
"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
"She was only 28. It wasn't like she was ill. She was here one day and gone the next, we didn't even get to say goodbye."
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2025
“I walked into the facility healthy and feeling fine, and within 24 hours I became severely ill. I had severe burning in my face, tremors, twitching; I felt like I was being electrocuted.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 12, 2025
"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
“Souls or no souls, these people are ill. This is no place to bicker.”
From "Hollow City" by Ransom Riggs
Calamos Investments is based in Naperville, Ill., and manages about $52 billion in assets through various strategies.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026
Ben Zwief, an adviser in Lake Forest, Ill., cites the example of a client with $50,000 in credit-card debt at a 20% interest rate.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 2, 2026
A recreation director from Berwyn, Ill., the aforementioned Ray Clay, succeeded Mr. Edwards starting with the 1990-91 championship season.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 21, 2026
The first R2s to roll off the company’s production line in Normal, Ill., are the performance version, starting at $57,990.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2026
I was born on March 9, 1943 in Chicago, Ill. U.S.A.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
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
But Gouzer said he expects Banksy’s market to keep rebuilding, thanks to a fresh influx of younger tech collectors and international wild-card buyers who admire the roguish way Banksy skewers societal ills.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
The vice president of the Durham Merchants Association complained, with some justification, that the business community was being blamed for all of Durham’s ills.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
"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
Still, in his older, iller years, he's become kinder, even to himself, and though he wished he'd done some stuff better, he could live with it.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 23, 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 Stoker, Bram
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
Blaze is just one of the illest low heads.
From Salon ● Mar. 6, 2021
There was just a little milk that was reserved for the illest patients, no butter or bread.
From Field Hospital and Flying Column Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia by Thurstan, Violetta
These animals also performed worse on tasks that tested their ability to remember where food had been located.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026
The contrasts become worse in looking at Vance and Obama’s second books, both of which were more obviously written with an eye toward running for higher office.
From Salon ● Jul. 29, 2026
In a slow, steady drift, which is worse, because you never see it on any single day.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026
"The winters of Scotland in the cross-country are far, far worse than that," he said.
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
The next two days of investigations went worse for the other mediums.
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
Caterpillar shares fell 6.9%, making it the worst performer in the Dow.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
In Somerset, farmers have described this as the worst drought in 50 years, leaving crops struggling.
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
Firefighters in France and Spain were battling to contain the worst wildfires in living memory before the arrival of a fourth heatwave of the summer brings scorching temperatures.
From Barron's ● Jul. 28, 2026
“It’s not the worst thing in the world; it reminds you that you’re part of nature.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
Grabbing handfuls of dewsoaked moss, he wiped off the worst of the dung, then yanked on his boots.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
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.
