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:
An AI tool may be able to help doctors judge how ill a patient is using a single photograph of their face, say US researchers.
From BBC ● Oct. 20, 2026
Xuan is recovering from leukemia treatments, has a “hole in his chest” and has fallen so ill he now permanently requires a wheelchair, Krems said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2026
It began with small accounts on social media speculating or claiming that Talarico was out not because he was physically ill but because he was mentally ill.
From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026
We learn that Uly “kept vigil” for the family when Mr. Simon’s stepfather grew ill, remaining constantly by the patient’s side.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
Her dress was ill fitting, snug across the shoulders and loose around the middle.
From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood
“If I can, and if things are going well creatively, I’ll just stay up,” he says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026
"Whenever I get the ball and there's an opportunity to go one versus one, or two versus one, I believe in myself to do it. I'll just keep going and be ruthless."
From BBC ● Oct. 20, 2026
I received plenty of creative responses that actually seem doable — and I’ll definitely be trying the grocery one.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 20, 2026
I’ve seen a lot of shows on the road and my wife will get jealous that I watched without her, so I’ll watch the whole series again at home with her.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2026
“Well, you saw Dara and smiled at her . . . and I thought . . .” I take a deep breath, accepting that I’ll just have to live with my embarrassment.
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
"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
But speaking to BBC News, Lord Falconer said: "The Commons has decided that there should be assisted dying as an option for those who are terminally ill. We should respect that decision."
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2025
"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 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
“He’s ill. Can you ... ? “Can I see to it that he is given his share of whatever Bridgebane provides?
From "Chains" by Laurie Halse Anderson
When Dylan Wagner bought his first home in Naperville, Ill., in 2022, a mortgage broker suggested he apply for an ARM instead of a fixed-rate loan because it would make his monthly payments more affordable.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 1, 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
Impossible Objects, an industrial-scale 3-D printing company operating in Northbrook, Ill., and Rochester, N.Y., secured $40 million in Series B funding led by Inflection Equity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026
The Carbondale, Ill., wonder, who grew up fishing a pond in his backyard, rocketed up the sport with his wizardry for forward-facing sonar.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026
I was born on March 9, 1943 in Chicago, Ill. U.S.A.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
Like the Tech Right, these men see noble masculinity as the solution to most of society’s ills.
From Slate ● Oct. 15, 2026
Attaching labels like “disruptive” and “innovative” to “alternative institutions” doesn’t make them a cure for all the ills Mr. Yass imagines higher education suffers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026
Time, perhaps, to question whether he's got the answers to the myriad ills of his team.
From BBC ● Sep. 20, 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
The editorialists suggested John Kwang, among others, as someone who could bring a fresh face to confront the city’s ills, a politician who could better understand the needs of the rapidly changing populace.
From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee
"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
Between September and October, 15.9 million people -- or nearly one in three Afghans -- were facing food insecurity at crisis levels or worse, including 3.4 million in emergency conditions, the agency said.
From Barron's ● Oct. 20, 2026
“The inflation outlook looks materially worse than we expected in the August…inflation has been coming in a little above expectations despite an easing in the labor market,” he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 20, 2026
“You don’t get misdiagnosed and all of a sudden I’m better. I haven’t gotten better. If anything, I’ve gotten worse in some ways.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2026
As bad as it is for the housing market — starts and transactions basically flat for the last three years with mortgage rates over 7%— it can get still get worse.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 20, 2026
She felt something worse than bad after she’d scanned up and down the menu several times, feeling as if everybody behind her was impatient, even though nobody was yelling at her to move.
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Plummeting by nearly a third, the Elice debut is the worst ever in Korean stock-market history, according to Bloomberg.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 20, 2026
Among worst performers on Japan’s benchmark index, Fujikura falls 3.4%, SoftBank Group 9984 -5.43%decrease; red down pointing triangle drops 3.3%, and Resona Holdings 8308 -3.32%decrease; red down pointing triangle sheds 2.7%.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 20, 2026
At just 5-for-9 on field goal tries through five weeks, Mevis had the worst rate in the entire league.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 19, 2026
Jack Cousens, head of roads policy at the AA, said drivers "finally have something which could offer them better protections against the worst private parking operators".
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026
“You know what the worst thing is? I was even kind of happy when I pulled this out of the mailbox. Like, ‘Hey, I’m not just the new kid anymore.
From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
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