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sickly

Pronunciation: /ˈsɪkli/

The English word “sickly” has 14 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Frequently ill or in poor health; weakly.
  2. Not in good health; (somewhat) sick.
  3. Characterized by poor or unhealthy growth. (of a plant)
  4. Appearing ill, infirm or unhealthy; giving the appearance of illness.
  5. Shedding a relatively small amount of light; (of light) not very bright.
  6. Lacking intensity or vigour.
  7. Associated with poor moral or mental well-being.
  8. Tending to produce nausea.
  9. Overly sweet.
  10. Marked by the occurrence of illness or disease (of a period of time).
  11. Tending to produce disease or poor health.

verb

  1. To make (something) sickly.
  2. To become sickly.

adverb

  1. In a sick manner; in a way that reflects or causes sickness.

Etymology

From Middle English seekly, sekely, siklich, sekeliche, equivalent to sick + -ly. Possibly a modification of Old English sīcle (“sickly”) and/or derived from Old Norse sjúkligr (“sickly”). Cognate with Dutch ziekelijk, Middle High German siechlich, Danish sygelig, Swedish sjuklig, Icelandic sjúklegur. The verb is from the adjective.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.