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:
This bodes ill for the Moroun family, the billionaire owners of the Ambassador Bridge since 1979, who have long sought to block the new bridge’s construction.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026
The dose was low enough that the mothers did not become significantly ill.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 25, 2026
Some have children, elderly or ill family members to care for during the day and, more importantly, it pays better.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
The delay could make it more difficult for ill people to remember all the foods they ate, “down to a single ingredient in a salad,” before they were stricken, Rimoin said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
These personal attacks devastated Rachel Jackson, and she soon became seriously ill.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
“I was a No. 10, what excites me is scoring goals…I was a leader on the pitch, and I’ll be a leader through what I’ve achieved.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
I’ll return it to another Little Free Library when I’m finished.
From Salon ● Jul. 28, 2026
"My goals and assists are really important so I'll make sure I'm right at it," she adds.
From BBC ● 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
If it’s a rejection email, I’ll be devastated.
From "Red Flags and Butterflies" by Sheryl Azzam
"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
"I was violently ill. I was sweating. I was cold. I was shaking. I was vomiting for about four or five days."
From BBC ● Jan. 5, 2026
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
"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
"I was ill. I could have treated myself if I'd had the medicine I have now."
From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
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
Willie Gillespie is from Libertyville, Ill., a northern suburb of Chicago.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 26, 2026
The 21-year-old Humphrey, set to be the most-watched player at this weekend’s Final Four in Evanston, Ill., is built differently.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 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
An experience completely ignorant to the ills of modern football, to politics, ticket prices or hydration breaks.
From BBC ● Jun. 21, 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
Dick was sick of him— his harmonica, his aches and ills, his superstitions, the weepy, womanly eyes, the nagging, whispering voice.
From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
"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
This, in turn, was the very thing to keep him but ill at ease with himself, and iller at ease, if not at downright loggerheads, with everybody else.
From The Red Moccasins A Story by Heady, Morrison
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
The Times quoted an unnamed "senior football figure" calling the plan "potentially much worse than the European Super League", as it would have an impact on all levels of football across the globe.
From Barron's ● Jul. 28, 2026
"The winters of Scotland in the cross-country are far, far worse than that," he said.
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
About half of patients with metastatic melanoma will get worse on first-line immunotherapies within a year, at which point they have scant options.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
“It couldn’t come at a worse time, as a lot of producers will be selling their calves over the next few months.”
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026
It seemed to be ten times worse than it had been before.
From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls
Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the leader of Madrid’s local government, earlier this week described the Madrid wildfires as perhaps “the worst natural catastrophe in Spain’s history.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
"People say your 20s are the best years of your life and these are the worst years of my life, by far."
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 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
Monday’s announcement appeared to leave investors uneasy as well, following hopes that the worst of the culture-war fallout from the logo change was in the rearview.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026
And if Emma’s dad is in prison…my brain starts imagining the worst.
From "South of Somewhere" by Kalena Miller
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.
