Open main menu
Wiktionary

ill

EnglishEdit

 
English Wikipedia has articles on:
Wikipedia

EtymologyEdit

From Middle English ille (“evil; wicked”), from Old Norse illr (adj), illa (adverb), ilt (noun) (whence Icelandic illur, Norwegian ille, Danish ilde), from Proto-Germanic *ilhilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁elk- (whence Latin ulcus (“sore”), Ancient Greek ἕλκος (hélkos, “wound, ulcer”), Sanskrit अर्शस् (árśas, “hemorrhoids”) (whence Hindi अर्श (arś)).[1]

PronunciationEdit

  • IPA(key): /ɪl/
  • Audio (US)
    		(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɪl

AdjectiveEdit

ill (comparative worse or iller or more ill, superlative worst or illest or most ill)

  1. (obsolete) Evil; wicked (of people). [13th-19th c.]
  2. (archaic) Morally reprehensible (of behaviour etc.); blameworthy. [from 13th c.]
    • 1999, George RR Martin, A Clash of Kings, Bantam 2011, p. 2:
      ‘Go bring her. It is ill to keep a lady waiting.’
  3. Indicative of unkind or malevolent intentions; harsh, cruel. [from 14th c.]
    He suffered from ill treatment.
  4. Unpropitious, unkind, faulty, not up to reasonable standard.
    ill manners; ill will
    • 1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:
      […] his lordship was out of humour. That was the way Chollacombe described as knaggy an old gager as ever Charles had had the ill-fortune to serve. Stiff-rumped, that's what he was, always rubbing the rust, or riding grub, like he had been for months past.
  5. Unwell in terms of health or physical condition; sick. [from 15th c.]
    I've been ill with the flu for the past few days.
  6. Having an urge to vomit. [from 20th c.]
    Seeing those pictures made me ill.
  7. (hip-hop slang) Sublime, with the connotation of being so in a singularly creative way.
    • 1986, Beastie Boys, License to Ill
    • 1994, Biggie Smalls, The What
      Biggie Smalls is the illest / Your style is played out, like Arnold wonderin "Whatchu talkin bout, Willis?"
  8. (slang) Extremely bad (bad enough to make one ill). Generally used indirectly with to be.
    That band was ill.
  9. (dated) Unwise; not a good idea.
    • George Swinnock
      Oh that when the devil and flesh entice the sinner to sport with and make a mock of sin, Prov. x. 23, he would but consider, it is ill jesting with edged tools, it is ill jesting with unquenchable burnings; […]
    • 1914, Indian Ink (volume 1, page 32)
      They arrested everybody—and it is ill to resist a drunken Tommy with a loaded rifle!

Usage notesEdit

  • The comparative worse and superlative worst are the standard forms. The forms iller and illest are also used in American English, but are less than a quarter as frequent as "more" and "most" forms. The forms iller, illest are quite common in the slang sense "sublime".

SynonymsEdit

AntonymsEdit

Derived termsEdit

Terms derived from ill (adjective)

TranslationsEdit

bad — see bad
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked

ReferencesEdit

  1. ^ Michiel de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages, s.v. "ulcus" (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 637.

AdverbEdit

ill (comparative more ill, superlative most ill)

  1. Not well; imperfectly, badly; hardly.
    • 1859, Charles Dickens, The Haunted House
      Within, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal. The slowly changing shadows waved on it from the heavy trees, were doleful in the last degree; the house was ill-placed, ill-built, ill-planned, and ill-fitted.
    • 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 3:
      In both groups, however, we find copious and intricate speciation so that, often, species limits are narrow and ill defined.
    • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Abacus 2010, p. 541:
      His inflexibility and blindness ill become a leader, for a leader must temper justice with mercy.
    • 2006, Julia Borossa (translator), Monique Canto-Sperber (quoted author), in Libération, 2002 February 2, quoted in Élisabeth Badinter (quoting author), Dead End Feminism, Polity, →ISBN, page 40:
      Is it because this supposes an undifferentiated violence towards others and oneself that I could ill imagine in a woman?

SynonymsEdit

AntonymsEdit

Derived termsEdit

Terms derived from ill (adverb)

TranslationsEdit

NounEdit

ill (plural ills)

  1. (often pluralized) Trouble; distress; misfortune; adversity.
    • William Shakespeare
      That makes us rather bear those ills we have / Than fly to others that we know not of.
    • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 4, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:
      Then he commenced to talk, really talk. and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.
    Music won't solve all the world's ills, but it can make them easier to bear.
  2. Harm or injury.
    I wouldn't want you to do me ill.
  3. Evil; moral wrongfulness.
    • John Dryden
      Strong virtue, like strong nature, struggles still, / Exerts itself, and then throws off the ill.
  4. A physical ailment; an illness.
    I am incapacitated by rheumatism and other ills.
  5. (US, slang) PCP, phencyclidine.

Derived termsEdit

TranslationsEdit

ReferencesEdit

  • Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.
  • Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary, 1987-1996.

Further readingEdit

  • ill at OneLook Dictionary Search

AnagramsEdit

ScotsEdit

WestrobothnianEdit

Alternative formsEdit

EtymologyEdit

From Old Norse illr, from Proto-Germanic *ilhilaz, from Proto-Indo-European * h₁elk-.

AdjectiveEdit

ill (neuter illt)

  1. evil, bad
    Han iles onga
    The evil one's kids
    Ja har illt i fotom
    I have pain in my feet.
    illt om styvra
    lack of money
    Han har illt uti säg
    He is concerned.
    Han har illt ini säg
    He has stomach pains.
    Ji hav illt hóvudä
    I have a headache.

Derived termsEdit

Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=ill&oldid=53173886"