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:
Five years later, the boy is played by Jackie Coogan and they are a team whose harmony is interrupted when the child becomes ill and mother re-enters the picture.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 7, 2026
BBC Sport has been told Dedic had no ill intention and has fully co-operated with police.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026
What’s the use of punishing a terminally ill man?
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2026
For the last six years of his life, he was terminally ill, and I was his full-time caregiver, around the clock.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 30, 2026
“No!” he shouted to the giant, hugging the skin flap tighter despite the fact that everything about this was making him ill.
From "Half Upon a Time" by James Riley
"I'll never forget it, she was like a child caught in the act of doing something they shouldn't be doing," he said.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026
“So I was surprised she missed, but afterwards I hugged her and we’re playing a Toyota Tour Cup tournament at Morongo this weekend, so I’ll see her there.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2026
"I'll keep pushing and pushing and see what happens."
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026
If it’s someone I’ll see again, I give it a shot.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026
I’ll always feel it; it’s always there, just below the surface.
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
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
"He's soldiered on for a while but now he's critically ill. We need to get his temperature and oxygen levels up fast."
From BBC ● Jan. 16, 2025
"She's never without her favorite comb. Her grandmother gave it to her a year before she grew ill. She wore it everywhere. Even in the bathing tubs."
From "The Belles" by Dhonielle Clayton
Rivian produced 19,751 vehicles at its facility in Normal, Ill., and delivered 19,248 vehicles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 2026
While the original location closed in 2020, there are still locations in Oakbrook, Ill., and Pittsburgh.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2026
Mallory Aylesworth, a 34-year-old working in senior-living sales in St. Charles, Ill., likes it, too.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 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
I was born on March 9, 1943 in Chicago, Ill. U.S.A.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
Pawlikowski has said that he keeps returning to the past in his films because addressing our modern ills directly would be too daunting.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2026
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
She used religion as a therapy for the ills of the world and of herself, and she changed the religion to fit the ill.
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
"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
Not knowing is worse than the very illest news.
From Grey Town An Australian Story by Gerald Baldwin
Yet patients who are stuck in the E.R. are at risk of worse care than if they had been moved to an inpatient room in a timely manner, several studies have shown.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2026
The families also say their grief has been made worse by how police have handled their loved ones' remains and belongings since the fire.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026
And if those stocks truly crash, ordinary people are going to get hit with losses that are far worse than they ever imagined, and find that they are more exposed than they realized.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 6, 2026
The study failed to meet its predetermined statistical requirement for demonstrating that the calcium scan approach was not meaningfully worse than conventional risk assessment.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 6, 2026
He most certainly wouldn’t have touched Nine’s shoulder had he known, for that memory made him feel even worse than he already had.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
Nasdaq futures rose 1.8% after the index lost $2.5 trillion in market value Thursday in its worst day since April 2025.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2026
Garrett had no tackles in the 27-7 defeat and said afterward that his performance was “the worst version” of himself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2026
The 28 October accident on the Madrid-Seville high-speed line was one of the worst railway disasters in Europe this century.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026
Then, whether buyers return to semiconductor stocks that have borne the worst of the selling, and whether any recovery extends beyond a handful of top-tier tech names.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 6, 2026
He did not mean that Clare would spend eternity in the realm reserved for the worst souls.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
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