sick Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun people who are sick
    • they devote their lives to caring for the sick
  2. verb eject the contents of the stomach through the mouth
    retch; regorge; be sick; disgorge; spew; vomit up; puke; honk; cat; purge; cast; spue; upchuck; vomit; barf; regurgitate; throw up; chuck.
    • After drinking too much, the students vomited
    • He purged continuously
    • The patient regurgitated the food we gave him last night
  3. adjective affected by an impairment of normal physical or mental function
    ill.
    • ill from the monotony of his suffering
  4. adjective satellite feeling nausea; feeling about to vomit
    queasy; nauseous; nauseated; sickish.
  5. adjective satellite affected with madness or insanity
    crazy; unhinged; brainsick; demented; disturbed; mad; unbalanced.
    • a man who had gone mad
  6. adjective satellite having a strong distaste from surfeit
    sick of; tired of; fed up; disgusted.
    • grew more and more disgusted
    • fed up with their complaints
    • sick of it all
    • sick to death of flattery
    • gossip that makes one sick
    • tired of the noise and smoke
  7. adjective satellite (of light) lacking in intensity or brightness; dim or feeble
    pallid; pale; wan.
    • the pale light of a half moon
    • a pale sun
    • the late afternoon light coming through the el tracks fell in pale oblongs on the street
    • a pallid sky
    • the pale (or wan) stars
    • the wan light of dawn
  8. adjective satellite deeply affected by a strong feeling
    • sat completely still, sick with envy
    • she was sick with longing
  9. adjective satellite shockingly repellent; inspiring horror
    macabre; grisly; ghastly; gruesome; grim.
    • ghastly wounds
    • the grim aftermath of the bombing
    • the grim task of burying the victims
    • a grisly murder
    • gruesome evidence of human sacrifice
    • macabre tales of war and plague in the Middle ages
    • macabre tortures conceived by madmen

WordNet


Sick adjective
Etymology
OE. sek, sik, ill, AS. seóc; akin to OS. siok, seoc, OFries. siak, D. ziek, G. siech, OHG. sioh, Icel. sjkr, Sw. sjuk, Dan. syg, Goth. siuks ill, siukan to be ill.
Wordforms
comparative Sicker ; superlative Sickest
Definitions
  1. Affected with disease of any kind; ill; indisposed; not in health. See the Synonym under Illness.
    Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever. Mark i. 30.
    Behold them that are sick with famine. Jer. xiv. 18.
  2. Affected with, or attended by, nausea; inclined to vomit; as, sick at the stomach; a sick headache.
  3. Having a strong dislike; disgusted; surfeited; -- with of; as, to be sick of flattery.
    He was not so sick of his master as of his work. L'Estrange.
  4. Corrupted; imperfect; impaired; weakned.
    So great is his antipathy against episcopacy, that, if a seraphim himself should be a bishop, he would either find or make some sick feathers in his wings. Fuller.
    Syn. -- Diseased; ill; disordered; distempered; indisposed; weak; ailing; feeble; morbid.
Sick noun
Definitions
  1. Sickness. Obs. Chaucer.
Sick intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To fall sick; to sicken. Obs. Shak.

Webster 1913