ill
adjective
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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:
There is no evidence that Xi is gravely ill or that he had a stroke or fainting spell, as rumored across social media this week.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
It recently occurred to Jung that all the days that she spent scrambling to save the ginkgo were the most active she had been since she fell ill last winter.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
The drug was generally well tolerated, and the critically ill patients in the trial lived longer than patients receiving standard treatments.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 17, 2026
The 81-year-old had appeared by video link when he was first brought to the court in The Hague, but had since skipped hearings, with his defence team saying he was too ill.
From Barron's ● Sep. 16, 2026
When I went back to my dormitory, I received word that my mother was ill.
From "Facing the Lion" by Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton and Herman Viola
I’ll be reviewing the iPhone Duo later, closer to its Oct.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026
Then I might stop at some of those shops along Sunset: I’ll go into Buck Mason, I’ll go into Parachute.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
In the next free issue of my Let’s Analyze newsletter on Substack, I’ll reveal the company, explain why I’m buying more and share the price I’m targeting.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 18, 2026
"British Airways, Lufthansa, and everybody else's high fares, I'll happily offend them on a regular basis," he had added.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
“Well, I’ll be able to see for myself when I get over there. I got to set my eyes on you and your brother.”
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 said: "It was a shock because my father was always a big, strong man, so he was never ill. He never used to take time off sick from work."
From BBC ● Dec. 15, 2025
Another shares: "When I see someone making really small repetitive movements, such as my husband bending his toes, I feel physically ill. I hold it back but I want to vomit."
From BBC ● Dec. 12, 2024
“I was genuinely surprised to see how many of you wrote letters to the judges, telling him I was mentally ill. Like my mother,” she said.
From Salon ● Oct. 27, 2024
“It’s a mixture of turmeric and some other medicinal powders. It’ll help keep you from falling ill. The monsoon will get worse soon.”
From "The Bridge Home" by Padma Venkatraman
His family moved to Decatur, Ill., where Archer-Daniels-Midland was based, after the agricultural giant named him to its board in 1991.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026
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 Arkansas-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. 13, 2026
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — For the last few years, Mo’ne Davis has enjoyed her anonymity.
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
What drives societal ills or ignites a social movement?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 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
In the video, Pratt stood outside Raman’s Silver Lake home and the city-owned Getty House in Hancock Park, where Bass lives, contending both are far removed from the urban ills that beset other Angelenos.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026
A Google user experience team two years later detailed ills affecting viewer well-being, based on external research.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 29, 2026
He was fed up with traveling through exotic countries selling shark-fin aphrodisiacs, ginseng to cure all ills, carved Eskimo statues, stuffed Amazonian piranhas, and chinchillas for ladies’ coats.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
"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
He's looking iller and older every day, and tells me himself that he never sees her now; it's too piteous to hear him, dear old thing.
From The War-Workers by E.M. Delafield
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
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
Only Villa, with 3.39, have a worse xG in the Premier League so far this season than Spurs' 3.45.
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026
He adds, “Nobody wants to live in a world where their individuality is questioned or worse, denied.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
Nearly three decades in, “South Park” still knows that if you want to understand what Americans think they are becoming, you could do worse than look at what they’re ordering.
From Salon ● Sep. 18, 2026
Developments elsewhere could make the picture better or worse.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
Two more steps, then one more, leaning to see around the corner and at last I saw it and when I did it was worse.
From "Woodsong" by Gary Paulsen
Villa have had the lowest number of shots in the Premier League with 33, compared to Tottenham's 51, while their six on target is also the worst in the top flight followed by Spurs' 12.
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026
With an 82-80 record, the 2005 San Diego Padres currently hold the dubious honor of being the worst squad ever to qualify for the playoffs in an uninterrupted season.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
Goldman Sachs strategist on Thursday charted five-year rolling returns on the all-important 10-year Treasury note — pegging it as the worst such period for returns in more than a century.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 17, 2026
Right fielder Kyle Tucker — who continued his recent hot streak with a single, two doubles and a home run on Thursday — is still on pace for the worst full season of his career.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026
We took my father home, but the worst was not over.
From "Black Star, Bright Dawn" by Scott O'Dell
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.
