Adjacent Words

Illness definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

ILL'NESS, n. [from ill.] Badness; unfavorableness; as the illness of the weather. [Not used.]
1. Disease; indisposition; malady; disorder of health; sickness. He has recovered from his illness.
2. Wickedness; iniquity; wrong moral conduct.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: impairment of normal physiological function affecting part or all of an organism [syn: illness, unwellness, malady, sickness] [ant: health, wellness]

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: circa 1500 1. obsolete a. wickedness b. unpleasantness 2. a. an unhealthy condition of body or mind b. sickness 2

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 a disease, ailment, or malady. 2 the state of being ill.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Illness Ill"ness, n. [From Ill.] 1. The condition of being ill, evil, or bad; badness; unfavorableness. [Obs.] ``The illness of the weather.'' --Locke. 2. Disease; indisposition; malady; disorder of health; sickness; as, a short or a severe illness. 3. Wrong moral conduct; wickedness. --Shak. Syn: Malady; disease; indisposition; ailment. Usage: Illness, Sickness. Within the present century, there has been a tendency in England to use illness in the sense of a continuous disease, disorder of health, or sickness, and to confine sickness more especially to a sense of nausea, or ``sickness of the stomach.''

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(illnesses) Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English. 1. Illness is the fact or experience of being ill. If your child shows any signs of illness, take her to the doctor... Mental illness is still a taboo subject. 2. An illness is a particular disease such as measles or pneumonia. She returned to her family home to recover from an illness. N-COUNT

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Disease, sickness, indisposition, ailing, ailment, complaint, disorder, distemper.

Moby Thesaurus

abnormality, acute disease, addiction, affection, affliction, ailment, allergic disease, allergy, atrophy, bacterial disease, birth defect, blight, bug, cardiovascular disease, chronic disease, circulatory disease, complaint, complication, condition, congenital defect, defect, deficiency disease, deformity, degenerative disease, disability, disease, disorder, distemper, endemic, endemic disease, endocrine disease, epidemic disease, functional disease, fungus disease, gastrointestinal disease, genetic disease, handicap, hereditary disease, iatrogenic disease, indisposition, infectious disease, infirmity, malady, malaise, morbidity, morbus, muscular disease, neurological disease, nutritional disease, occupational disease, organic disease, pandemic disease, pathological condition, pathology, plant disease, protozoan disease, psychosomatic disease, respiratory disease, rockiness, secondary disease, seediness, sickishness, sickness, signs, symptomatology, symptomology, symptoms, syndrome, the pip, urogenital disease, virus disease, wasting disease, worm disease