ill.
Evil; wicked (of people).
Meaning & usage
Evil; wicked (of people).
Morally reprehensible (of behaviour etc.); blameworthy.
Indicative of unkind or malevolent intentions; harsh, cruel.
He suffered from ill treatment.
Unpropitious, unkind, faulty, not up to reasonable standard.
ill manners; ill will
Unwell in terms of health or physical condition; sick.
mentally ill people
I've been ill with the flu for the past few days.
Nauseated; having an urge to vomit.
Seeing those pictures made me ill.
Sublime, with the connotation of being so in a singularly creative way.
This is the illest beat I've ever heard.
Extremely bad (bad enough to make one ill). Generally used indirectly with to be.
That band was ill.
Unwise; not a good idea.
Bad-tempered.
Where this word comes from
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”)). Cognates 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”).
Not well; imperfectly, badly
Where this word comes from
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”)). Cognates 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”).
Trouble; distress; misfortune; adversity.
Music won't solve all the world's ills, but it can make them easier to bear.
Harm or injury.
I wouldn't want you to do me ill.
Evil; moral wrongfulness.
A physical ailment; an illness.
I am incapacitated by rheumatism and other ills.
PCP, phencyclidine.
Where this word comes from
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”)). Cognates 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”).
To behave aggressively.
Where this word comes from
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”)). Cognates 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”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.