ill

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Not in good health; sick.

   She felt too ill to go to work today.

2. 2
   adv

   In a bad, harmful, or improper way.

   It is unkind to speak ill of the dead.

3. 3
   adj

   Harmful or causing trouble.

   Smoking has serious ill effects on your health.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Ill comes from Old Norse illr, “evil.” Its common modern sense, “suffering from an illness or feeling unwell,” developed in the later medieval period. The older association with harm and evil remains prominent in expressions such as it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

From Middle English ille (“evil; wicked”), from Old Norse íllr (adjective), ílla (adverb), ílt (noun), from Proto-Germanic *ilhilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁elḱ- (whence Latin ulcus (“sore”), Ancient Greek ἕλκος (hélkos, “wound, ulcer”), Sanskrit अर्शस् (árśas, “hemorrhoids”)). Cognates Cognate with Scots and Yola ill, Danish ilde (“bad”), Faroese, Icelandic illur (“bad, ill, wicked”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk ille (“bad”), Swedish illa (“badly; poorly”).

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary