illness

UK/ˈɪl.nəs/US/ˈɪl.nəs/

nounA2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #2,995 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: illnesses

An illness is a period of being unwell, or a particular kind of it. A week in bed, or a diagnosis.

English distinguishes it from disease with reasonable consistency, since a disease is the identified condition and an illness is the experience of being unwell, and somebody can feel ill without any disease being found. Mental illness uses the word deliberately for that reason. It works as a mass noun and a count noun, so a long illness and a great deal of illness are both correct.

Definitions of illness

1nounillnessThe state of being unwell, or a particular disease.A2+
“He was off for six weeks with a long illness.”

Where it comes from

Proto-Indo-European
*h₁elḱ-
Proto-Germanic
*ilhilaz
Old Norse
íllr
Middle English
ille — evil; wicked
English
ill
English, today
illness

From ill + -ness. ill comes from Middle English ille (“evil; wicked”), from Old Norse íllr, ílla, ílt, from Proto-Germanic ilhilaz, from Proto-Indo-European h₁elḱ- (whence Latin ulcus (“sore”), Ancient Greek ἕλκος (“wound, ulcer”), Sanskrit अर्शस् (“hemorrhoids”)). 2 Cognate with Scots - and yol ill, Danish ilde (“bad”), Faroese -, Icelandic illur (“bad, ill, wicked”), Norwegian Bokmål -, Norwegian Nynorsk ille (“bad”), Swedish illa (“badly; poorly”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Word Building

First appears in chapter 6 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

illness in the wild

In the later part of his life, George had recurrent and eventually permanent mental illness.
George III
Diagnosis is usually determined by meeting specific DSM-5 criteria after ruling out true illness as described below.
Factitious disorder imposed on self
A patient who has such an illness is a terminally ill patient.
Terminal illness
An illness which will result in premature death, even if that death may be many years away, is a life-limiting illness.
Terminal illness
A chronic condition, also known as a chronic disease or chronic illness, is a health condition or disease that is persistent or otherwise long-lasting in its effects.
Chronic condition

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the íllr family

ill illness

illness — used about once every 460 pages · #2,995 · point at the bar for the others

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