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  1. valetudinarian love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A sickly or weak person, especially one who is constantly and morbidly concerned with his or her health: "She affected to be spunky about her ailments and afflictions, but she was in fact an utterly self-centered valetudinarian” ( Louis Auchincloss).
  2. adj. Chronically ailing; sickly.
  3. adj. Constantly and morbidly concerned with one's health.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Being in a poor state of health; weak; infirm; invalid; delicate; seeking to recover health.
  2. n. A person of a weak, infirm, or sickly constitution; one who is seeking to recover health; an invalid.
  3. n. Also valetudinary.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. sickly, infirm, of ailing health
  2. adj. being overly worried about one's health
  3. n. A person in poor health or sickly, especially one who is constantly obsessed with their state of health

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Of infirm health; seeking to recover health; sickly; weakly; infirm.
  2. n. A person of a weak or sickly constitution; one who is seeking to recover health.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. of or relating to or characteristic of a person who is a valetudinarian
  2. n. weak or sickly person especially one morbidly concerned with his or her health

Etymologies

  1. From Latin valētūdinārius, from valetudo ("state of health, health, ill health"), from valere ("to be strong or well") +‎ -an (Wiktionary)
  2. From Latin valētūdinārius, from valētūdō, valētūdin-, state of health, from valēre, to be strong or well; see wal- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “At this moment, the stranger who had put the coachman and groom right about the word valetudinarian, rose from the seat he had occupied in the corner of the room, and uttering a deep, hollow groan, walked towards the door.”

    Varney the vampire; or, The feast of blood. Volume 3

  • “I never write 'valetudinarian' at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn't do it for fifteen.”

    Mark Twain`s speeches; with an introduction by William Dean Howells.

  • “I never write 'valetudinarian' at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents;”

    Mark Twain's Speeches

  • “A "valetudinarian" is a10-dollar word for someone who is sickly.”

    post-gazette.com - News

  • “Her valetudinarian but masterful father, son of a wool merchant, became sufficiently well-to-do to retire from business.”

    Ada Leverson.

  • “At three and twenty he thought himself a valetudinarian, and passed his life in inspecting his tongue in the mirror.”

    Les Miserables

  • “The gentlemen received the communication with stoical indifference, and Mrs. Tibbs devoted all her energies to prepare for the reception of the valetudinarian.”

    Sketches by Boz

  • “You, who have nothing to fear on that score, might wish to play the valetudinarian as a novelty.”

    Simon & Schuster: The Scandal of the Season

  • “ONE hour more to dinner-time conversation, to be added or subtracted, as occasions offered, or the desire of her friends required: and yet found it difficult, as she often said, to keep this account even; especially if Dr. Lewen obliged them with his company at their table; which, however he seldom did; for, being a valetudinarian, and in a regimen, he generally made his visits in the afternoon.”

    Clarissa Harlowe

  • “There goes in the world a notion, that the scholar should be a recluse, a valetudinarian, — as unfit for any handiwork or public labor, as a penknife for an axe.”

    The American Scholar

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synonyms (5)

Words with the same meaning

  1. sickly
  1. weakly
  1. infirm
  1. ailing
  1. hypochondriac

hypernyms (3)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. sick person
  1. diseased person
  1. sufferer

same context (19)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. fusel
  2. complainer
  3. sixty-year-old
  1. waddling
  2. soft-heartedness
  3. cenobite
  1. talk-show
  2. dirty-faced
  3. newly-born
  1. formidable-looking
  2. becomingness
  3. neurodegeneration
  1. north-wind
  2. grafter
  3. Brahmin
  1. starter-generator
  2. d'arthur
  3. townsman
  1. Brahmana

reverse dictionary (5)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. valetudinary
  1. valetudinarian
  1. valetudinous
  1. valetudinarianism
  1. confirmed

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  1. ppwp_soundintelligent

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  • chained_bear "'I might prefer to wait for Yarell, whose present incumbent, a valetudinarian of over seventy, lives in Bath.'"
    --O'Brian, The Truelove, 74 Mar 10, 2008

  • brtom True, madam, there are valetudinarians in reputation as well as constitution ...
    Sheridan, School for Scandal Jan 6, 2008

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‘valetudinarian’ has been looked up 3955 times, loved by 11 people, added to 64 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 18.