ill
pronunciation
How to pronounce ill in British English:
UK [ɪl]
How to pronounce ill in American English:
US [ɪl]
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- Noun:
- an often persistent bodily disorder or disease; a cause for complaining
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- Adjective:
- not in good physical or mental health
- resulting in suffering or adversity
- distressing
- indicating hostility or enmity
- presaging ill-fortune
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- Adverb:
- (`ill' is often used as a combining form) in a poor or improper or unsatisfactory manner; not well
- unfavorably or with disapproval
- with difficulty or inconvenience; scarcely or hardly
Word Origin
- ill
- ill: [12] ‘Sick’ is not the original meaning of ill. To start with it meant ‘bad’ (a sense which survives, of course, in contexts such as ‘ill-will’, ‘illmannered’, etc), and ‘sick’ did not come on the scene until the 15th century. The word was borrowed from Old Norse illr, which is something of a mystery: it has other modern descendants in Swedish illa and Danish ilde ‘badly’, but its other relations are highly dubious (Irish olc has been compared) and no one knows where it originally came from. The sense ‘sick’ was probably inspired by an impersonal usage in Old Norse which meant literally ‘it is bad to me’.=> like
- ill (adj.)
- c. 1200, "morally evil" (other 13c. senses were "malevolent, hurtful, unfortunate, difficult"), from Old Norse illr "ill, bad," of unknown origin. Not considered to be related to evil. Main modern sense of "sick, unhealthy, unwell" is first recorded mid-15c., probably related to Old Norse idiom "it is bad to me." Slang inverted sense of "very good, cool" is 1980s. As a noun, "something evil," from mid-13c.
- ill (v.)
- early 13c., "to do evil to," from ill (adj.). Meaing "to speak disparagingly" is from 1520s. Related: Illed; illing.
- ill (adv.)
- c. 1200, "wickedly; with hostility;" see ill (adj.). Meaning "not well, poorly" is from c. 1300. It generally has not shifted to the realm of physical sickess, as the adjective has done. Ill-fated recorded from 1710; ill-informed from 1824; ill-tempered from c. 1600; ill-starred from c. 1600. Generally contrasted with well, hence the useful, but now obsolete or obscure illcome (1570s), illfare (c. 1300), and illth.
Example
- 1. Eg. he is very ill and unlikely to recover .
- 2. But the wilderness for good or ill is increasingly irrelevant .
- 3. The fear of ill exceeds the ill we fear .
- 4. But the rebel stance ill suits such a successful , mainstream politician .
- 5. Some worry that sprawling supply chains may allow ill winds from abroad to blow in more easily .