sickness
Americannoun
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sicknesses
plural
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a particular disease or malady.
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the state or an instance of being sick; illness.
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nausea; queasiness.
noun
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an illness or disease
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nausea or queasiness
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the state or an instance of being sick
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of sickness
before 1000; Middle English siknesse, seknesse, Old English sēocnesse. See sick 1, -ness
Compare meaning
How does sickness compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
The condition of being unwell or having an illness is sickness. Your sickness during the month of November might mean you miss a lot of school. A well-known, Christian version of wedding vows includes a promise to "have and to hold...in sickness and in health." This means the couple agrees to stay together and support each other whether they're healthy or ill. Some sickness is a chronic or permanent kind of malady, while others are more specific, like morning sickness during pregnancy or a brief flash of sickness when your plane hits a patch of turbulence.
Vocabulary lists containing sickness
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:
There is a very real fear about trying to catch things before they happen, and often, these products are trying to market a cure for a sickness that hasn’t even happened yet.
From Slate ● Oct. 8, 2026
In its annual assessment, it said since 2019 it had received 992 reports of sickness in Wales caused by sewage, with 215 of those coming in 2025.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
It took the company more than six weeks to clear the site, during which residents complained about a surge of rats, flies and sickness.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026
Experts also say we can become desensitised to motion sickness through prolonged exposure.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026
As it was, the poor animals had to be given injections to treat animal sleeping sickness every few weeks.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
So many of the family’s cattle fell ill that she no longer believed the sicknesses were a coincidence.
From Salon ● May 10, 2026
"There are sicknesses and we can not find any cure," said 54-year-old Abu Khalil, who has been displaced to Rafah in southern Gaza.
From BBC ● Feb. 18, 2024
The buses were crowded with sicknesses spreading quickly.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 17, 2024
Charles N. Hunter, who later wrote a critical report accusing General Stilwell of sending men still recovering from jungle sicknesses back into combat, which drew a Congressional investigation.
From New York Times ● Jan. 12, 2024
“Private Williams,” said I, “there are more sicknesses than the smallpox, and we endanger ourselves by resting in the vapors.”
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
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.
