sickly

C2+ Topic:Describing Qualities

US /ˈsɪkli/ UK /ˈsɪkli/ See IPA manual

Minimal pairs

Sounds like thickly /θ/ vs /s/

Meanings

1

adj
often ill or unhealthy, or suggesting illness

The sickly child spent much of the winter indoors.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 adj · often ill or unhealthy, or... unhealthy ailing infirm frail sallow weak

Opposites

healthy robust hale vigorous

Word family

Forms sickliedsickliness

Derived forms sickliness

Related forms sick sickness

Appears in

Tongue twisters (1)

See all

Six Slick Saplings
Six slick slim slippery slimy sleek slender sickly saplings.

Keep /sl/ together through slick, slim, slippery, slimy, sleek and slender. The start changes to /s/ without /l/ in sickly and saplings.

Etymology

From sick plus the suffix -ly; sick is from Old English seoc ('ill, diseased'), from Proto-Germanic *seukaz, of uncertain ultimate origin.

seoc Old English *seukaz Proto-Germanic

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Describing Qualities Word Formation & Derivatives

External links

# sickly

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** adj
**IPA (US):** /ˈsɪkli/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈsɪkli/

## Meanings
1. often ill or unhealthy, or suggesting illness

## Examples
- The sickly child spent much of the winter indoors.

## Synonyms
- unhealthy
- ailing
- infirm
- frail
- sallow
- weak

## Antonyms
- healthy
- robust
- hale
- vigorous

## Derived Forms
- sickliness

## Related Forms
- sick
- sickness

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: seoc
- Root: *seukaz

## Etymology
From sick plus the suffix -ly; sick is from Old English seoc ('ill, diseased'), from Proto-Germanic *seukaz, of uncertain ultimate origin.

## AI Etymology
Sickly comes from sick plus the suffix -ly; sick is from Old English seoc ('ill, diseased'), from Proto-Germanic *seukaz, of uncertain ultimate origin. The historical chain includes Old English seoc and Proto-Germanic *seukaz. The quoted older sense, "ill, diseased," supplies the immediate semantic anchor for sickly. The formation is best read as suffixal and borrowed: the word sickly carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a adj, "often ill or unhealthy, or suggesting illness". English derivatives include sickliness; related English forms include sick and sickness. The result is a adj and adv whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.

## Topics
- Describing Qualities
- Word Formation & Derivatives

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