Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- 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).
- adj. Chronically ailing; sickly.
- adj. Constantly and morbidly concerned with one's health.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Being in a poor state of health; weak; infirm; invalid; delicate; seeking to recover health.
- n. A person of a weak, infirm, or sickly constitution; one who is seeking to recover health; an invalid.
- n. Also valetudinary.
Wiktionary
- adj. sickly, infirm, of ailing health
- adj. being overly worried about one's health
- n. A person in poor health or sickly, especially one who is constantly obsessed with their state of health
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of infirm health; seeking to recover health; sickly; weakly; infirm.
- n. A person of a weak or sickly constitution; one who is seeking to recover health.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. of or relating to or characteristic of a person who is a valetudinarian
- n. weak or sickly person especially one morbidly concerned with his or her health
Etymologies
- From Latin valētūdinārius, from valetudo ("state of health, health, ill health"), from valere ("to be strong or well") + -an (Wiktionary)
- 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.”
“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;”
“A "valetudinarian" is a10-dollar word for someone who is sickly.”
“Her valetudinarian but masterful father, son of a wool merchant, became sufficiently well-to-do to retire from business.”
“At three and twenty he thought himself a valetudinarian, and passed his life in inspecting his tongue in the mirror.”
“The gentlemen received the communication with stoical indifference, and Mrs. Tibbs devoted all her energies to prepare for the reception of the valetudinarian.”
“You, who have nothing to fear on that score, might wish to play the valetudinarian as a novelty.”
“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.”
“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.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘valetudinarian’.
-
Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
-
Collected Words - List 2
I've been saving these words FOR YEARS. Now, I've found Wordie
gasconade, zaccheus, spoor, precentor, bombazine, otiose, khamsin, bruited, viva voce, whilom, lenitive, ebullition and 244 more...
-
phrontistery-v
from phrontistery.info
vulviform, vulvar, vulturine, vulpine, vulpicide, vulpecular, vulnerose, vulsella, vulnerary, vulnerate, vulgus, vulgo and 396 more...
-
Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
-
Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
-
Afflictions of the Realm
archaic diseases
dropsy, quinsy, tisick, measles, croup, gout, canker, teething, overlaying, mold-shot head, thrush, whooping-cough and 56 more...
-
difficult words
ordure, tatterwallop, callipygian, odious, colophon, cynosure, hardener, emollience, valetudinarian, demonym, volage, polysemantic and 257 more...
-
All The Words
I enjoy collecting words, for I have no fear of them ever running out.
anacoluthon, defenestration, hypnopomp, hypnagogue, idioglossia, panopticon, tatterdemalion, abalone, caltrop, miasma, paroxysm, smalt and 475 more...
-
The Aubrey/Maturin List I'm Gonna Mak...
I'm wading through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels one by one, and someday, I'll wade through them again and list all the words I learned while reading them.
Edit: I started ma...studdingsail, carronade, mumchance, grumlin-futtocks, crosscat-harpings, holystone, sennit, orlop, orchitis, negus, kevel, altumal and 1112 more...
-
Niels's Words
bien-pensant, pro re nata, zeitgeist, naïve, quod erat demonst..., dramastic, mélange, amanuensis, heuristic, hermeneutic, gist, gumption and 157 more...
-
summer words 2009
how many words can I make mine this summer?
largess, hoyden, catholic, fornicatress, quean, slattern, bildungsroman, sybaritic, descresent, nodus, frittle, callipygian and 529 more...
-
Joe's list
Fissiparous Weekly Standard Nigeria a fissiparous country 3/2012
fissiparous, inchoate, punctilious, synecdoche, apocryphal, superadd, pedant, pedagogy, astigmatic, inter alia, aphoristically, eponymous and 131 more...
-
deidionysus's list
Words, words, words!
cartesian, shavian, dithyramb, dreadnaught, lea, adamantine, titanomachy, theomachy, aethereal, ambrosia, ambrosial, aether and 183 more...
-
ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
-
vorpal's Words
parabiosis, penumbra, defenestrate, portmanteau, sturm und drang, perspicacious, quixotic, copacetic, obfuscate, inveigle, shadenfreude, cloister and 349 more...
-
rhii's words to remember and incorporate
Just whatever words I might happen across in my wanderings that I find myself compelled to write down so that I remember to try to use them. Not necessarily unusual words, but worthwhile ones.
redact, treatise, vitrify, cogitate, propensity, silphium, saccharine, minutiae, sluicing, dalliance, remonstrated, carnelian and 131 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for valetudinarian.

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