illness

From ill + -ness.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪl.nəs/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (UK):

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• Rhymes: -ɪlnəs

illness (countable and uncountable, plural illnesses)

2. (countable) An instance (episode) of a disease or poor health.

   Her grandmother had passed away after a long illness.

   suffer form a severe illness

   a mild illness

   • 2022 May 7, Liang En Wee, Edwin Philip Conceicao, Jean Xiang-Ying Sim, May Kyawt Aung, Aung Myat Oo, et al., “Dengue and COVID-19: Managing Undifferentiated Febrile Illness during a ‘Twindemic’”, in Tropical medicine and infectious disease, →DOI:

     This further exacerbated the diagnostic challenge posed by undifferentiated febrile illness during a “twindemic” of both COVID-19 and dengue, as both illnesses could potentially present with febrile syndromes.

3. (uncountable) A state of bad health or disease.

   Many working days this year have been lost through illness.

   • 2012, Anne Westhues, Canadian Social Policy: Issues and Perspectives:

     Illness is a wholistic reality, just as health is wholistic, and healing is the process of moving from illness to health.

• (instance): sickness
• (state): sickness
• See also Thesaurus:disease

• ill

• hypochondriac

• Wikipedia stub on illness