ill
Usage
What are other ways to say ill?
The adjective ill is more mild than evil or wicked, and it appears mainly in certain fixed expressions: ill will; ill-natured. Evil applies to that which violates or leads to the violation of moral law: evil practices. Wicked implies willful and determined doing of what is very wrong: a wicked plan. Bad is the broadest and simplest term: a bad man; bad habits.Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
David described the situation as "intolerable" and said he did not want his daughter to know about the fines while she was seriously ill.
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2026
Those are surely factors, but what we are witnessing is a legal show trial, acting out institutionalized vengeance toward a mother who was severely and obviously mentally ill, something on which both sides agree.
From Salon ● Sep. 2, 2026
Marina, whose grandmother warned her away from returning to their home in Haifa, finally visits and discovers that the house both seems to know her and is making her very ill.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026
The upward pressure on bond yields bodes ill for the U.S.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
He declared that every patient had to pay eighty cents, except for women, children, the truly poor, and anyone seriously ill.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
To remedy these ills, the court needs top-to-bottom reform.
From Slate ● Jul. 29, 2026
What drives societal ills or ignites a social movement?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026
As Norway advance, is Wright correct about Scottish football's ills?
From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2026
The Swiss are largely well-governed, and the country’s appeal is understandable to people who want to escape the tax rates and other ills that are common elsewhere in Europe.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2026
He was fed up with traveling through exotic countries selling shark-fin aphrodisiacs, ginseng to cure all ills, carved Eskimo statues, stuffed Amazonian piranhas, and chinchillas for ladies’ coats.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
"If you have a generally iller population, that's not good for the residents, it's not good for productivity, it's not good for the economy.'"
From BBC ● May 25, 2023
This gave him an unnatural appearance and made him look iller than ever.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 30, 2019
He got iller and iller and iller, and of course he died in the beginning of 2015 when some of the other things had started appearing in the press.
From BBC ● Nov. 23, 2016
Still, in his older, iller years, he's become kinder, even to himself, and though he wished he'd done some stuff better, he could live with it.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 23, 2012
Still, if this be snow in earnest," he added with a cheerier tone, "it may rid us of these vermin, who'll find provand iller to get every extra day they bide.
From John Splendid The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn by Neil Munro
The Black neighborhoods like Baldwin Hills Estates, Ladera Heights and View Park all sit hillside with some of the illest views in the city.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2026
His wife was told she should prepare for the worst, with staff describing her husband as "one of the illest people they'd ever seen".
From BBC ● May 21, 2024
Rapper Travis Scott told his nearly 12 million followers on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, that Monday “might be one for the illest days in women’s sports historyyyyyyy.”
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 2, 2024
Blaze is just one of the illest low heads.
From Salon ● Mar. 6, 2021
There was just a little milk that was reserved for the illest patients, no butter or bread.
From Field Hospital and Flying Column Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia by Violetta Thurstan
To make matters worse, and to shed an even more unflattering light on the club's strategy and operation, it all came after hours after Everton had sanctioned striker Beto's £15.5m move to Fiorentina.
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2026
Researchers found that people who faced ongoing financial difficulties or persistently low income during early and middle adulthood tended to perform worse on cognitive tests by the age of 53.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 2, 2026
And the worse the Netflix originals get, the clearer it becomes that artistic inferiority has been baked into the company’s business model.
From Salon ● Sep. 2, 2026
Even worse, Zaslav torched multiple projects while reportedly calling in personal favors for celebrity friends like Nicholas Pileggi, who penned the script for WBD’s 2025 bomb The Alto Knights, at great expense to the studio.
From Slate ● Sep. 1, 2026
But worse than that was the creeping dread.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
"When we looked at all of the risks, we felt it was important to make sure that we didn't have workers who we wouldn't be able to rescue if the worst thing happened to them."
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2026
Still, he sees the worst is behind the Chinese solar sector, as government intervention and market forces may alleviate oversupply.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
"The worst outcome is that you don't take advantage of it, that you are left behind. That is the single worst outcome," Huang said.
From Barron's ● Sep. 2, 2026
Saturday, though, marked the smallest home crowd at USC since late in the 2018 season, when the Trojans had their worst finish for the program in a quarter century, under former coach Clay Helton.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026
And what I didn’t say was that staying in this house alone at night with Patch was the worst thing I could think of and I couldn’t do that to Celia.
From "Nory Ryan’s Song" by Patricia Reilly Giff
