overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

illness.

An instance (episode) of a disease or poor health.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈɪl.nəs/
  1. An instance (episode) of a disease or poor health.

    countable
    Her grandmother had passed away after a long illness.
    suffer form a severe illness
  2. A state of bad health or disease.

    uncountable
    Many working days this year have been lost through illness.
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree English ill Proto-Germanic *-in- Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ti Proto-Germanic *-ōną Proto-Germanic *-inōną Proto-Indo-European *-dyé- Proto-Germanic *-atjaną Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Germanic *-þuz Proto-Germanic *-assuz Proto-Germanic *-inassuz Proto-West Germanic *-nassī Old English -nes Middle English -nesse English -ness English illness From ill + -ness.

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

illness has 7 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

illness studioillness workshello, illness

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

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.