mentally ill

adjective

1. having a mental illness.

noun

, (used with a plural verb)

1. Usually the mentally ill. mentally ill persons collectively.

Word History and Origins

Origin of mentally ill¹

First recorded in 1935–40

Example Sentences

Meanwhile, the number of mentally ill residents sitting in jail cells ballooned.

From Washington Post

Escondido continues to grapple with the deadly shooting last week of a mentally ill homeless man, but police have still not released body-worn camera footage of the incident.

From Voice of San Diego

For decades, legislators underfunded mental health care and imprisoned mentally ill people.

From Time

The deinstitutionalization movement succeeded in reducing the mass warehousing of old and mentally ill people.

From Time

Old and mentally ill people were soon overrepresented among the homeless, in poor neighborhoods and in prisons.

From Time

One in five Pennsylvania inmates are classified as mentally ill.

From The Daily Beast

We have 10 times as many mentally ill individuals behind bars than in psychiatric hospitals.

From The Daily Beast

They want to hold the seat that Giffords had to give up after being shot in the head by a mentally ill man.

From The Daily Beast

Everyone agrees that guns should be kept out of the hands of the mentally ill, even the National Rifle Association.

From The Daily Beast

In many states, the mentally ill or intellectually disabled could be sterilized.

From The Daily Beast

Because, my dear friend, you are mentally ill, and I wish to cure you.

From Project Gutenberg

Seward said that insane people were simply those who were mentally ill, and that "Hospital" was the proper term.

From Project Gutenberg

Yet if he came in contact with disease in another creature it left him mentally ill.

From Project Gutenberg

She had insight in so far as she knew she had been mentally ill.

From Project Gutenberg

He was mentally ill, to a point where he had through his delusions driven away all his old-time friends.

From Project Gutenberg