Adjective: ill
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
| Comparative | iller |
| Superlative | illest |
Perifrastic
| Comparative | more ill |
| Superlative | most ill |
Sample Sentences
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St. Paul chose to magnify his office when ill men conspired to lessen it. [1709 December 6, Francis Atterbury, A Sermon Preached before the Sons of the Clergy, at their Anniversary-Meeting, in the Church of St. Paul:]
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A man who is conscious of having an ill character, cannot justly be angry with those who neglect and slight him. [1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC:]
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‘Go bring her. It is ill to keep a lady waiting.’ [1999, George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, Bantam, published 2011, page 2:]
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He suffered from ill treatment.
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ill manners; ill will
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[…]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. [1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:]
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mentally ill people
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I've been ill with the flu for the past few days.
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Sue made herself ill through overwork.
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“We desperately needed the nursing support because our ICUs are so inundated with critically ill Covid patients,” Brown said. [2021 August 14, Christina Maxouris, “‘Bursting at the seams’: Full ICUs are creating a dangerous ER backlog and forcing hospitals to cancel surgeries”, in CNN:]
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Seeing those pictures made me ill.
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This is the illest beat I've ever heard.
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Biggie Smalls is the illest / Your style is played out, like Arnold wonderin "Whatchu talkin bout, Willis?" [1994, Biggie Smalls, “The What”:]
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That band was ill.
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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; […] [1672, George Swinnock, The Incomparableness of God:]
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They arrested everybody—and it is ill to resist a drunken Tommy with a loaded rifle! [1914, Indian Ink, volume 1, page 32:]
Adjectives inflected like ill
wholsom,
seldom,
scared,
solemn,
silent,
beloved,
uptight,
perfect,
useless,
up-tight,
selfish,
distinct,
discreet,
Dutch,
reckless,
bumfuck,
worthless,
slender,
faithfull,
shallow, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
1. From Middle English ille (“evil; wicked”), from Old Norse íllr (adjective), ílla (adverb), ílt (noun), from Proto-Germanic *ilhilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁elḱ- (whence Latin ulcus (“sore”), Ancient Greek ἕλκος (hélkos, “wound, ulcer”), Sanskrit अर्शस् (árśas, “hemorrhoids”)).
2. Cognates
3. Cognate with Scots and Yola ill, Danish ilde (“bad”), Faroese, Icelandic illur (“bad, ill, wicked”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk ille (“bad”), Swedish illa (“badly; poorly”).
Verbs referencing "ill"
English Adjectives
idle, Finnish Adjectives
ilkeä.