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:
She explained that Randall, who died in 2023 at age 57, had been ill for half of their relationship and that his diagnosis came amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
Across South East Asia, authorities are looking at restricting social media use for minors, citing possible ill effects.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
The Affordable Care Act of 2010 took a more practical approach, aiming to ensure Americans don’t have to wait until they’re catastrophically ill to receive meaningful care.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 18, 2026
In 2024, the king was fitted with a pacemaker having fallen ill on holiday in Malaysia.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 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
On the flipside, when I turn 70½ in late January, I’ll be able to save on taxes through qualified charitable distributions, or QCDs.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 23, 2026
I'll talk to the team and make my decision.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
That’s why I’ll never interview him while he’s president.
From Salon ● Aug. 21, 2026
I’ll be trading triple-digit temperatures for highs in the 60s.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
“Okay, Tiana, I’ll be right there,” he says.
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
"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
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
“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
“She’s terribly ill. I couldn’t go, I just couldn’t, not knowing — ” Nat looked intently at her, and took one step nearer.
From "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Speare
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
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Ashton Lansdell is tattooed with reminders of her faith in herself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2026
Rivian currently builds its EVs at a plant in Normal, Ill., about three hours from Chicago.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 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
I was born on March 9, 1943 in Chicago, Ill. U.S.A.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
To remedy these ills, the court needs top-to-bottom reform.
From Slate ● Jul. 29, 2026
What drives societal ills or ignites a social movement?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026
An experience completely ignorant to the ills of modern football, to politics, ticket prices or hydration breaks.
From BBC ● Jun. 21, 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
Bush’s speech contained nothing newsworthy about drug policy, or Nicaragua, or the Federal Reserve, or balancing the budget, or social ills, or the homeless.
From "Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream" by H.G. Bissinger
"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
The more she reflected upon what her possibilities had been and how she had misused them, the iller and the more distressed she got.
From Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 by Various
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
The season couldn't have got off to a worse start for Sage.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
He suggested that shoppers have gotten wiser, but not necessarily worse off.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 21, 2026
The 101 has long been a bottleneck nightmare as it approaches Santa Barbara and the yearslong project to widen the freeway has only made it worse.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
If Wendy Wasserstein wrote a worse play than “An American Daughter,” I hope I never have the misfortune of seeing it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
“If you don’t get rid of that net, young man, you’re going to be in a worse fix than Gandy is. Now, you better believe that.”
From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls
If a claim is substantiated, the plagiarist is seen as sloppy or lazy at best, and fundamentally dishonest at worst.
From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2026
Today shows them to be one of the worst behaved.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
It’s set in Los Angeles but the cafés and shops are obviously not local and the worst, most dated stock L.A. traffic footage can’t cover that up.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
By 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Goldman Sachs said it was the worst day in more than two years for “systematic long short managers,” a category of quant funds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
But the worst part of it all was the bottled-up feelings with no release valve.
From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu
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.
