sickly
Americanadjective
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not strong; unhealthy; ailing.
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of, connected with, or arising from ill health.
a sickly complexion.
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marked by the prevalence of ill health, as a region.
the epidemic left the town sickly.
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causing sickness.
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maudlin and insipid; mawkish.
sickly sentimentality.
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faint or feeble, as light or color.
adverb
verb (used with object)
adjective
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disposed to frequent ailments; not healthy; weak
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of, relating to, or caused by sickness
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(of a smell, taste, etc) causing revulsion or nausea
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(of light or colour) faint or feeble
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mawkish; insipid
sickly affectation
adverb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of sickly
1300–50; Middle English siklich, sekly (adj.). See sick 1, -ly
Explanation
If you're frequently ill, or often under the weather, you're sickly. A sickly child tends to miss a lot of school. Sickly people aren't in perfect health — they are prone to coming down with illnesses, or they just generally don't feel well. You can also describe someone as appearing sickly, if their faces are pale and unhealthy-looking. This "habitually ailing" meaning dates from the fourteenth century, and for a brief time it was also used to mean "causing illness."
Vocabulary lists containing sickly
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.
Born coughing, Patti Smith was a sickly kid.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 25, 2025
But it’s not wrong that the movement is starting to look a little sickly.
From Salon • Nov. 24, 2025
Smith was a sickly child, contracting bronchial pneumonia, tuberculosis, German measles, mumps and chicken pox which kept her in "periods of lengthy bed rest".
From BBC • Nov. 4, 2025
While the series is very much up for grabs, Tuesday’s loss makes one thing very sickly certain.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 28, 2025
Her hands are white and sickly and frail compared with mine.
From "All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel" by Erich Maria Remarque
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.
