noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   An instance of a disease or poor health. countable

   "Her grandmother had passed away after a long illness."

2. 2
   impairment of normal physiological function affecting part or all of an organism wordnet
3. 3
   A state of bad health or disease. uncountable

   "Many working days this year have been lost through illness."

Synonyms

All synonyms

sicknessdiseasesicknessabnormalityacute diseaseaddiction

Antonyms

All antonyms

healthvaccinationwellness

Example

More examples

"I feel indebted to you for your help during my illness."

Etymology

From ill + -ness.

Related phrases

Gulf War illnessaccelerated critical illnesschronic illnesscritical illnessfinal illnessfolk illnessfood-derived illnessfoodborne illnessmental illnesspostorgasmic illness syndromeseroconversion illnessterminal illness

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.