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:
They have taken unto themselves unprecedented power to do good and ill to the world.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
By contesting the decision, you might have supplanted positive memories with ill will and friction.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 24, 2026
Jackson started to feel ill two days after Ramsbottom side's win over Cheadle, and his case became so severe that doctors had to fit his heart with a mechanical pump to keep him alive.
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
Vatete must be extremely ill to ask the doctor to come from her village.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
Warnings against job losses and other social ills have intensified lately.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
To remedy these ills, the court needs top-to-bottom reform.
From Slate ● Jul. 29, 2026
As Norway advance, is Wright correct about Scottish football's ills?
From BBC ● Jul. 7, 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 equality, eugenics would inevitably falter on the false premise that social ills, such as vagrancy, pauperism, deviance, alcoholism, and feeblemindedness were genetic ills—while, in fact, they merely reflected inequality.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
"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
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
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
Sources could be accused of violating censorship laws—or, worse, committing treason.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
Citizens who aren’t likely to notice when their local newspaper becomes a bit more bare-bones, or that the already byzantine healthcare system becomes slightly harder to navigate, will definitely notice when their lunch gets worse.
From Salon ● Sep. 25, 2026
Gordon said that he had "never felt worse", after the game and believes that the "scar" left by defeat may mean the England squad take a different approach in the next tournament.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026
Even to a cynic like me, the results were worse than expected.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 23, 2026
“I’m going to make a pile of gold. Every pixie within a mile of here will be swarming this room if you leave those windows open, and that will probably be worse than a sneeze.”
From "Rump: The (Fairly) True Story of Rumpelstilskin" by Liesl Shurtliff
“The piano world,” the author writes, “is, in many ways, the worst of the canon-worshipping repertoires, a leftover of Clara’s own legacy.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
Dobbin added that one senior official at the Home Office told colleagues that the conditions were the worst he had seen in 20 years.
From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2026
In the book, MacLachlan recalls being utterly dumbfounded at having been asked to do something so oblivious at best and cruel at worst.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
In the worst case she has seen, one of her clients was entangled in what appeared to be a romance scam.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 24, 2026
Knowing it was the worst thing to do, Renn leaned forward and peered through the gap.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
