sickly Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. adjective satellite unhealthy looking
    sallow.
  2. adjective satellite somewhat ill or prone to illness
    peaked; indisposed; unwell; under the weather; ailing; seedy; poorly.
    • my poor ailing grandmother
    • feeling a bit indisposed today
    • you look a little peaked
    • feeling poorly
    • a sickly child
    • is unwell and can't come to work

WordNet

Sick"ly adjective
Wordforms
comparative Sicklier ; superlative Sickliest
Definitions
  1. Somewhat sick; disposed to illness; attended with disease; as, a sickly body.
    This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. Shak.
  2. Producing, or tending to, disease; as, a sickly autumn; a sickly climate. Cowper.
  3. Appearing as if sick; weak; languid; pale.
    The moon grows sickly at the sight of day. Dryden.
    Nor torrid summer's sickly smile. Keble.
  4. Tending to produce nausea; sickening; as, a sickly smell; sickly sentimentality. Syn. -- Diseased; ailing; infirm; weakly; unhealthy; healthless; weak; feeble; languid; faint.
Sick"ly adverb
Definitions
  1. In a sick manner or condition; ill.
    My people sickly [with ill will] beareth our marriage. Chaucer.
Sick"ly transitive verb
Definitions
  1. To make sick or sickly; -- with over, and probably only in the past participle. R.
    Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. Shak.
    Sentiments sicklied over . . . with that cloying heaviness into which unvaried sweetness is too apt to subside. Jeffrey.

Webster 1913