Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Not healthy; sick: I began to feel ill last week.
- adj. Not normal; unsound: an ill condition of body and mind.
- adj. Resulting in suffering; harmful or distressing: the ill effects of a misconceived policy.
- adj. Resulting from or suggestive of evil intentions: ill deeds committed out of spite.
- adj. Ascribing an objectionable quality: holds an ill view of that political group.
- adj. Hostile or unfriendly: ill feeling between rivals.
- adj. Harmful; pernicious: the ill effects of a misconceived policy.
- adj. Not favorable; unpropitious: ill predictions.
- adj. Not measuring up to recognized standards of excellence, as of behavior or conduct.
- adv. In a sickly or unsound manner; not well.
- adv. Scarcely or with difficulty.
- n. Evil; sin.
- n. Disaster, distress, or harm.
- n. Something that causes suffering; trouble: the social ills of urban life.
- n. Something that reflects in an unfavorable way on one: Please don't speak ill of me when I'm gone.
- idiom. ill at ease Anxious or unsure; uneasy: The stranger made me feel ill at ease.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Inherently bad or evil; of pernicious quality or character; vicious; wicked; malevolent.
- Causing evil or harm; baneful; mischievous; pernicious; deleterious: as, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good.
- Marked or attended by evil or suffering; disastrous; wretched; miserable: as, an ill fate; an ill ending.
- Of bad import, bearing, or aspect; threatening; forbidding; harsh; inimical: as, ill news travels fast; an ill countenance.
- In a bad or disordered state morally; unbalanced; cross; crabbed; unfriendly; unpropitious; hostile: as, ill nature; ill temper; ill feeling; ill will.
- In a disordered state physically; diseased; impaired: as, to be ill of a fever; to be taken ill; ill health.
- Not proper; not legitimate or polite; rude; unpolished: as, ill manners; ill breeding.
- Unskilful; inexpert: as, I am ill at reckoning.
- n. Evil; wrong; wickedness; depravity.
- n. Misfortune; calamity; adversity; disaster; disease; pain.
- n. Anything that is discreditable or injurious.
- Badly; imperfectly; unfavorably; unfortunately.
- Not easily; with hardship, pain, or difficulty: as, he is ill able to bear the loss.
- To do evil to; harm; injure.
- To slander; defame.
- n. Abbreviations of Illinois.
- n. Abbreviations of illustrated or of illustration.
Wiktionary
- adj. slang Extremely bad (bad enough to make one ill). Generally used indirectly with to be.
- adv. Not well; imperfectly, badly; hardly.
- n. often pluralized Trouble; distress; misfortune; adversity.
- n. Harm or injury.
- n. Evil; moral wrongfulness.
- n. A physical ailment; an illness.
- n. Unfavorable remarks or opinions.
- n. US, slang PCP, phencyclidine
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Contrary to good, in a physical sense; contrary or opposed to advantage, happiness, etc.; bad; evil; unfortunate; disagreeable; unfavorable.
- adj. Contrary to good, in a moral sense; evil; wicked; wrong; iniquitious; naughtly; bad; improper.
- adj. Sick; indisposed; unwell; diseased; disordered.
- adj. Not according with rule, fitness, or propriety; incorrect; rude; unpolished; inelegant.
- n. Whatever annoys or impairs happiness, or prevents success; evil of any kind; misfortune; calamity; disease; pain.
- n. Whatever is contrary to good, in a moral sense; wickedness; depravity; iniquity; wrong; evil.
- adv. In a ill manner; badly; weakly.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. affected by an impairment of normal physical or mental function
- adj. resulting in suffering or adversity
- adv. with difficulty or inconvenience; scarcely or hardly
- adv. (`ill' is often used as a combining form) in a poor or improper or unsatisfactory manner; not well
- adj. distressing.
- n. an often persistent bodily disorder or disease; a cause for complaining
- adj. presaging ill fortune
- adv. unfavorably or with disapproval
- adj. indicating hostility or enmity
Etymologies
- Middle English ille ‘evil, wicked’, from Old Norse illr (adj.), illa (adv.), ilt (noun) (whence Danish ild), from Proto-Germanic *elhilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁elḱ- (whence Latin ulcus ‘sore’, Ancient Greek hélkos ‘wound, ulcer’, Sanskrit árśas ‘hemorrhoids’). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old Norse īllr, bad. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“IV. i.35 (385,8) [that my heart means no ill] [W: tho '] _That my heart means no ill_, is the same with _to whom my heart means no ill_; the common phrase suppresses the particle, as _I mean him_ [not _to_ him] _no harm_.”
“A few weeks ago she was taken ill, and in her ill*”
Internet Archive: Gleanings of the Vintage, Or Letters to the Spiritual Edification of the ...
“What w ill thc}/anivver; if a defpcrate and a ftarving people, a licentious and an ill* paid foidicry tired with plundering and with deftroying each other fhould unite in requiring reaibn of them, as of the au - thors of all their evils?”
“The referendums Note how the pro-KMT China Post puts the term ill-gotten in quotes are aimed at popular topics -- support for entry into the UN is strong, and the stolen assets of the KMT are a major issue for Greens.”
“But "usual" seems a term ill-applied to Russian-Western relations in recent years, as well as one unlikely to get much use in the months and years to come.”
“A human embryo is not the same as a human being: what you call ill-defined terminology is clearly well-defined at the extremes we are talking about here.”
“The Board was especially critical of what it termed ill-advised and intemperate threats of jail imprisonment allegedly made by one Albemarle County official”
“After dinner that evening Paul bewailed what he called his ill luck.”
“Much pride had the veteran when he showed the sleek cattle, the cackling poultry-yard, and the tall stacks of hay; only he growled bitterly over what he termed the ill-timed leniency of his young patron in releasing the slaves in the chain-gang.”
A Friend of Caesar A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C.
“I can account for his conduct only by attributing it to that which we call ill-conditioned: I had to expel him from the house.”
The Last Journals of David Livingstone from 1865 to His Death
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ill’.
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3-Letter Scrabble Words Which Do Not ...
A list of 3-letter words which cannot be formed by adding a letter to a 2-letter word (see Ken Clark's word lists found at http://www.seattlescrab...
ace, act, aff, aft, apo, app, apt, auk, ava, ave, avo, azo and 225 more...
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EN - archaic words
abide, abjure, abroad, adamant, afield, aforetime, aghast, anon, apace, argent, assuage, aught and 328 more...
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gangster
random gangster lingo and street slang with extra absurdities.
( open list, randomness )
related:
http://www....swagga, chinga, slams, blitzy, earf, manor, code name, rekkid, weight, feather, kong, swisher and 324 more...
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RELI - Genesis
Protagonists and relevant words in the Book of Creation (Source: King James Bible)
Laban, circumcise, beget, Esau, Rebekah, speckle, Sodom, Pharaoh, Canaanite, Canaan, Jacob, Lot and 1286 more...
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3-letter Scrabble Words
aah, aal, aas, aba, abo, abs, aby, ace, act, add, ado, ads and 995 more...
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Words that can be spelled on an upsid...
Imagine my joy when I was wearing my calculator watch and was first introduced to someone named Leslie - there was exactly enough room on the display for 317537.14.
Edit: I've discove...hi, hello, leslie, sheesh, she, bells, hells, hog, boss, goggles, he, bob and 233 more...
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3 Letter Words
A list of English words that are three letters long.
ace, act, ade, ado, add, ads, age, ago, ail, air, aim, all and 397 more...
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Miss Polly had a dolly who was...
sick, sickly, ill, unwell, under the weather, unhealthy, off colour, bedridden, diseased, infected, contagious, queasy and 14 more...
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Types of Humor
dry wit, irony, sarcasm, black humor, blue humor, gallows humor, parody, Burlesque, satire, repartee, wit, deadpan and 12 more...
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balance and symmetrical design
words that are attractive to write and say, and look balanced in symbolic composition, (mini-artistry)
moon, elemental, totalitarianism, solo, snowplow, enyce, illure, ohio, shine, dixie, quattro, curvature and 8 more...
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Viking Words
From http://www.vikingrune.com/2009/10/viking-words-in-english/
anger, birth, bleak, bloom, call, cast, crawl, crook, die, fellow, gear, get and 36 more...
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Words Made Of Roman Numerals
dividivi, cimicic, civic, civil, idic, dill, livid, mild, ilicic, vivid, clim, imidic and 43 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 2995 more... -
strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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3LW
3 letter words, not the girl band.
boggle and speed scrabble would not be half as fun without them.aah, boa, dot, fun, ick, log, oca, pyx, sos, was, aal, bob and 342 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ill.

Prolagus Really? That's ill! Nov 3, 2008
mollusque Interlibrary loan. Jul 25, 2008
uselessness A word that surely could only have come to mean cool by one tragic happenstance: when all the world's linguists and lexicographers suddenly decided to take a bathroom break at the same time. A highly improbable coinkydink that they all quickly apologized for, but it was too late. The damage caused by that brief, seemingly harmless event, is irreversible.
Many language scholars lost their jobs in the wake of the travesty; it's rumored that most fled to Wordie in a desperate attempt to escape their sorrows. Today they work mostly as unskilled laborers in agricultural and civil service positions but must remain anonymous online or risk reopening those painful old wounds.
All we ask is for forgiveness. May 11, 2007