King James Bible Dictionary

ILL, noun

1. Bad or evil, in a general sense; contrary to good, physical or moral; applied to things; evil; wicked; wrong; iniquitous; as, his ways are ill; he sets an ill example.

2. Producing evil or misfortune; as an ill star or planet.

3. Bad; evil; unfortunate; as an ill end; an ill fate.

4. Unhealthy; insalubrious; as an ill air or climate.

5. Cross; crabbed; surly; peevish; as ill nature; ill temper.

6. Diseased; disordered; sick or indisposed; applied to persons; as, the man is ill; he has been ill a long time; he is ill of a fever.

7. Diseased; impaired; as an ill state of health.

8. Discordant; harsh; disagreeable; as an ill sound.

9. Homely; ugly; as ill looks, or an ill countenance.

10. Unfavorable; suspicious; as when we say, this affair bears an ill look or aspect.

11. Rude; unpolished; as ill breeding; ill manners.

12. Not proper; not regular or legitimate; as an ill expression in grammar.

ILL, noun Wickedness; depravity; evil.

Strong virtue, like strong nature, struggles still,

Exerts itself and then throws off the ill

1. Misfortune; calamity; evil; disease; pain; whatever annoys or impairs happiness, or prevents success.

Who can all sense of other's ills escape,

Is but a brute at beat in human shape.

ILL, adverb Not well; not rightly or perfectly.

He is ill at ease.

1. Not easily; with pain or difficulty. He is ill able to sustain the burden.

Ill bears the sex the youthful lovers' fate,

When just approaching to the nuptial state.

ILL, prefixed to participles of the present tense, and denoting evil or wrong, may be considered as a noun governed by the participle, or as making a part of a compound word; as an ill meaning man, an ill designing man, an ill boding hour; that is, a man meaning ill an hour boding ill It is more consonant, however, to the genius of our language, to treat these and similar words as compounds. In some cases, as before the participles of intransitive verbs, ill must be considered as a part of the compound, as in ill-looking. When used before the perfect participle, ill is to be considered as an adverb, or modifying word, or to be treated as a part of the compound; as in ill-bred, ill-governed, ill-fated, ill-favored, ill-formed, ill-minded. In these and all similar connections, it might be well to unite the two words in a compound by a hyphen. As ill may be prefixed to almost any participle, it is needless to attempt to collect a list of such words for insertion.