sickly C2+ Topic:Health & Medicine 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... unhealthyailinginfirmfrailsallowweak ↔ Opposites healthyrobusthalevigorous Word family Forms sickliedsickliness Derived forms sickliness Related forms sicksickness Etymology AI details 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 Health & Medicine Word Formation & Derivatives External links Cambridge Dictionary Wiktionary Google Images # 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 - Health & Medicine - Word Formation & Derivatives markdown