Sickhouse

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A place where sick or injured people are cared for; a hospital.

    "The sickhouse was a cool, capacious, and convenient building, well adapted to the purpose for which it was used."

Example

More examples

"The sickhouse was a cool, capacious, and convenient building, well adapted to the purpose for which it was used."

Etymology

From Middle English sykhous, sek hous (“hospital”, literally “a house for the sick”), equivalent to sick + house. Cognate with West Frisian sikehûs (“hospital”), Dutch ziekenhuis (“hospital”), German Low German Süükhuus, Sükenhuus (“hospital”), German Siechhaus, Siechenhaus (“infirmary”), Danish sygehus (“hospital”), Swedish sjukhus (“hospital”), Icelandic sjúkrahús (“hospital”). Compare also German Krankenhaus (“hospital”), Saterland Frisian Kroankenhuus (“hospital”), Old English lǣċehūs (“hospital”).

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