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:
My closest friend of more than 40 years is terminally ill, with most likely less than a year to live.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 25, 2026
They have taken unto themselves unprecedented power to do good and ill to the world.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
"To get that, though, you need to have people talking to each other, and you've got to more actively manage sickness and ill health in the workplace."
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026
From a combination of mold exposure and severe burnout from filming “After Midnight” on weekdays and performing in different cities on weekends, she fell ill for months and was forced to take a break.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
Even if it was because her partner was chronically ill and that meant she’d have to share credit.
From "Liar, Liar" by Gary Paulsen
Time, perhaps, to question whether he's got the answers to the myriad ills of his team.
From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2026
To remedy these ills, the court needs top-to-bottom reform.
From Slate ● Jul. 29, 2026
But Gouzer said he expects Banksy’s market to keep rebuilding, thanks to a fresh influx of younger tech collectors and international wild-card buyers who admire the roguish way Banksy skewers societal ills.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
In the video, Pratt stood outside Raman’s Silver Lake home and the city-owned Getty House in Hancock Park, where Bass lives, contending both are far removed from the urban ills that beset other Angelenos.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026
Without proper training and conditioning—and sometimes even with them—competitive rowers are apt to experience a wide variety of ills in the knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, ribs, neck, and above all the spine.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
"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
Last year began with my being ill, kept on with my being iller, then I was unwell, followed by being poorly with a tiny interlude of infirmity.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 15, 2012
The more she reflected upon what her possibilities had been and how she had misused them, the iller and the more distressed she got.
From Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 by Various
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
It’s one of the illest, if not the illest Caribbean food spots in the city.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 22, 2022
Not knowing is worse than the very illest news.
From Grey Town An Australian Story by Gerald Baldwin
September is the peak of Thailand's rainy season, but many Bangkok residents said this year's floods seemed worse than previous ones.
From Barron's ● Sep. 28, 2026
Irvine said the issue had been even worse during this summer's heatwaves, which had led to her being prescribed medication for migraines.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
At the same time, glucosamine-treated mice developed worse deficits in "social memory" -- or memory of recognition -- compared with the other animals.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 27, 2026
“Young adults consider ordinary conflict to be much worse than it once was,” he says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2026
And I regret to inform you that it does get worse before it gets better.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
After another rough week, the bond market’s no-good September continued on Monday, with the Treasury market on the verge of booking one of its worst monthly showings in years.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 28, 2026
The bond selloff of 2022 was by some measures the worst in U.S. history.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2026
And worst of all, USC’s defense still couldn’t get a stop.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2026
When a clown’s only trick is shouting into a live microphone, the absolute worst thing that can happen is for the cameras to simply turn off.
From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2026
Even though we were now free, and life was returning to some kind of normality, this was the worst time of all for me because Peter’s letters just stopped coming.
From "An Elephant in the Garden" by Michael Morpurgo
