Sickly
adj, adv, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 To make (something) sickly. archaic, literary, transitive
"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,"
- 2 To become sickly. intransitive, rare
"1889, Samuel Cox, An Expositor’s Notebook, London: Richard D. Dickinson, 7th edition, Chapter 26, p. 364, But the seven most prominent Apostles […] still hang together, their hearts tormented with eager yet sad questionings, their hopes fast sicklying over with the pale hues of doubt."
- 1 Frequently ill or in poor health; weakly.
"a sickly child"
- 2 Not in good health; (somewhat) sick.
"Yes, bring me word, boy, if thy lord look well, For he went sickly forth:"
- 3 Characterized by poor or unhealthy growth. (of a plant)
"[...] the good wheat on this land had turned sickly and yellow."
- 4 Appearing ill, infirm or unhealthy; giving the appearance of illness.
"a sickly pallor"
- 5 Shedding a relatively small amount of light; (of light) not very bright.
"The Moon grows sickly at the sight of day."
Show 6 more definitions
- 6 Lacking intensity or vigour.
"a sickly smile"
- 7 Associated with poor moral or mental well-being.
"The slightest distress, whether real or fictitious, touched him to the quick, and his soul laboured under a sickly sensibility of the miseries of others."
- 8 Tending to produce nausea.
"a sickly smell; sickly sentimentality"
- 9 Overly sweet.
"[…] he was again tasting the sickly welter of melted ice cream on his plate."
- 10 Marked by the occurrence of illness or disease (of a period of time). obsolete
"This physic but prolongs thy sickly days."
- 11 Tending to produce disease or poor health. obsolete
"a sickly autumn; a sickly climate"
- 1 unhealthy looking wordnet
- 2 somewhat ill or prone to illness wordnet
- 1 In a sick manner; in a way that reflects or causes sickness.
"sickly pale; to cough sickly"
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"My desire to become a doctor grew out of looking after my sickly brother."
Etymology
From Middle English seekly, sekely, siklich, sekeliche, equivalent to sick + -ly. Possibly a modification of Old English sīcle (“sickly”) and/or derived from Old Norse sjúkligr (“sickly”). Cognate with Dutch ziekelijk, Middle High German siechlich, Danish sygelig, Swedish sjuklig, Icelandic sjúklegur. The verb is from the adjective.
From sick + -ly.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.