nauseated

American  

adjective

1. affected with nausea; nauseous.

   The bumpy plane ride made me very nauseated.

2. filled with disgust.

   I feel nauseated when I read about corruption in city government.

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Usage

What does nauseated mean? To be nauseated is to have nausea—to feel sick in your stomach, as if you might vomit. The word nauseous is more commonly used to mean the same thing. Nauseated is commonly used as an adjective, but it can also be the past tense of the verb nauseate, meaning to cause to feel nausea. The adjective nauseating means causing nausea (nauseous can also be used to mean this, but that’s much less common). The word nausea can also be used in a figurative way meaning a feeling of disgust, revulsion, or repulsion, and nauseated can be used to describe people who feel this way, meaning about the same thing as disgusted, as in I feel nauseated by their cruelty. Example: I’m not sure what has made me more nauseated—the disgusting food or the server’s disgusting comments.

Commonly Confused

See nauseous.

Other Word Forms

• unnauseated adjective

Etymology

Origin of nauseated

First recorded in 1650–1660, for an earlier sense; nauseat(e) ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

Explanation

When you're nauseated, you're queasy, or you feel like you might vomit. If you have the flu, you'll probably spend a day or two feeling nauseated. Queasy. Sick to your stomach. Barfy. All of these describe the uncomfortable feeling of being nauseated. Riding on a roller coaster three times in a row could make you feel nauseated, and if you sat down and ate an entire three-layer birthday cake by yourself, you'd definitely be nauseated by the time you finished. The Latin root word nausea originally described seasickness.

Example Sentences

By the end, both of us felt slightly nauseated, though not by the food.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 13, 2026

At times, the cousin recalled, he felt dizzy and nauseated.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 20, 2025

People who were nauseated by the drugs were more likely to report increased food waste.

From Science Daily • Nov. 21, 2024

The effect can be vertiginous—so the way people avoid being nauseated is by trying to ignore the dissonance.

From Salon • May 29, 2024

She uncovered the food and took a peek before grimacing, as though the sight of the meat nauseated her.

From "Krik? Krak!" by Edwidge Danticat