different between ill vs thin

English

Etymology

From Middle English ille (“evil; wicked”), from Old Norse illr (adj), illa (adverb), ilt (noun) (whence Icelandic illur, Norwegian ille, Danish ilde), from Proto-Germanic *ilhilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h?elk- (whence Latin ulcus (“sore”), Ancient Greek ????? (hélkos, “wound, ulcer”), Sanskrit ?????? (ár?as, “hemorrhoids”) (whence Hindi ???? (ar?)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?l/
• Rhymes: -?l

Adjective

ill (comparative worse or iller or more ill, superlative worst or illest or most ill)

1. (obsolete) Evil; wicked (of people). [13th-19th c.]
   • 1709, Francis Atterbury, A Sermon Preached before the Sons of the Clergy, at their Anniversary-Meeting, in the Church of St. Paul (December 6, 1709)

     St. Paul chose to magnify his office when ill men conspired to lessen it.

   • A man who is conscious of having an ill character, cannot justly be angry with those who neglect and slight him.

2. (archaic) Morally reprehensible (of behaviour etc.); blameworthy. [from 13th c.]
   • 1999, George RR Martin, A Clash of Kings, Bantam 2011, p. 2:

     ‘Go bring her. It is ill to keep a lady waiting.’

3. Indicative of unkind or malevolent intentions; harsh, cruel. [from 14th c.]

4. Unpropitious, unkind, faulty, not up to reasonable standard.
5. Unwell in terms of health or physical condition; sick. [from 15th c.]

   Mentally ill people.

6. Having an urge to vomit. [from 20th c.]

7. (hip-hop slang) Sublime, with the connotation of being so in a singularly creative way.
   • 1986, Beastie Boys, License to Ill
   • 1994, Biggie Smalls, The What

     Biggie Smalls is the illest / Your style is played out, like Arnold wonderin "Whatchu talkin bout, Willis?"

8. (slang) Extremely bad (bad enough to make one ill). Generally used indirectly with to be.

9. (dated) Unwise; not a good idea.
   • 1672, George Swinnock, The Incomparableness of God

     Oh that when the devil and flesh entice the sinner to sport with and make a mock of sin, Prov. x. 23, he would but consider, it is ill jesting with edged tools, it is ill jesting with unquenchable burnings; […]

   • 1914, Indian Ink (volume 1, page 32)

     They arrested everybody—and it is ill to resist a drunken Tommy with a loaded rifle!

Usage notes

• The comparative worse and superlative worst are the standard forms. The forms iller and illest are also used in American English, but are less than a quarter as frequent as "more" and "most" forms. The forms iller, illest are quite common in the slang sense "sublime".

Synonyms

• (suffering from a disease): diseased, poorly (UK), sick, under the weather (informal), unwell
• (having an urge to vomit): disgusted, nauseated, nauseous, sick, sickened
• (bad): bad, mal-
• (in hip-hop slang: sublime): dope
• See also Thesaurus:diseased

Antonyms

• (suffering from a disease): fine, hale, healthy, in good health, well
• (bad): good
• (in hip-hop slang: sublime): wack

Derived terms

Translations

References

Adverb

ill (comparative worse or more ill, superlative worst or most ill)

1. Not well; imperfectly, badly
   • 1859, Charles Dickens, The Haunted House

     Within, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal. The slowly changing shadows waved on it from the heavy trees, were doleful in the last degree; the house was ill-placed, ill-built, ill-planned, and ill-fitted.

   • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Abacus 2010, p. 541:

     His inflexibility and blindness ill become a leader, for a leader must temper justice with mercy.

   • 2006, Julia Borossa (translator), Monique Canto-Sperber (quoted author), in Libération, 2002 February 2, quoted in Élisabeth Badinter (quoting author), Dead End Feminism, Polity, ?ISBN, page 40:

     Is it because this supposes an undifferentiated violence towards others and oneself that I could ill imagine in a woman?

Synonyms

• illy

Antonyms

• well

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

ill (countable and uncountable, plural ills)

1. (often pluralized) Trouble; distress; misfortune; adversity.

2. Harm or injury.

3. Evil; moral wrongfulness.
4. A physical ailment; an illness.

5. (US, slang, uncountable) PCP, phencyclidine.

Derived terms

• for good or ill

Translations

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.
• Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary, 1987-1996.

Further reading

• ill at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Lil, li'l, li'l', lil

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From Old Norse illr, from Proto-Germanic *ilhilaz. Along English ill, probably cognate with Irish olc.

Adjective

ill (masculine and feminine ill, neuter ilt, definite singular and plural ille, comparative illare, superlative indefinite illast, superlative definite illaste)

1. bad
2. sore
3. angry, wroth
4. (in compounds) strong, very

Related terms

• illa, ille (verb)
• ille (adverb)

References

• “ill” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Scots

Adjective

ill (comparative waur, superlative warst)

1. ill
2. bad, evil, wicked
3. harsh, severe
4. profane
5. difficult, troublesome
6. awkward, unskilled

Adverb

ill (comparative waur, superlative warst)

1. ill
2. badly, evilly, wickedly
3. harshly, severely
4. profanely
5. with difficulty
6. awkwardly, inexpertly

Noun

ill (plural ills)

1. ill
2. ill will, malice

Westrobothnian

Alternative forms

• il

Etymology

From Old Norse illr, from Proto-Germanic *ilhilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h?elk-.

Adjective

ill (neuter illt)

1. evil, bad

   Han iles onga

   The evil one's kids

   Ja har illt i fotom

   I have pain in my feet.

   Han har illt uti säg

   He is concerned.

   Han har illt ini säg

   He has stomach pains.

   Ji hav illt hóvudä

   I have a headache.

Derived terms

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English willen, from Old English willan, from Proto-West Germanic *willjan.

Verb

ill

1. will

References

• Jacob Poole (1867) , William Barnes, editor, A glossary, with some pieces of verse, of the old dialect of the English colony in the baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, J. Russell Smith, ?ISBN

English

Etymology

From Middle English thinne, thünne, thenne, from Old English þynne, from Proto-West Germanic *þunn?, from Proto-Germanic *þunnuz (“thin”) – compare *þanjan? (“to stretch, spread out”) – from Proto-Indo-European *ténh?us (“thin”), from *ten- (“to stretch”).

Cognate with German dünn, Dutch dun, West Frisian tin, Icelandic þunnur, Danish tynd, Swedish tunn, Latin tenuis, Irish tanaí, Welsh tenau, Latvian tievs, Sanskrit ??? (tanú, “thin”), Persian ???? (tang, “narrow”). Doublet of tenuis. Also related to tenuous.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???n/
• Rhymes: -?n
• Homophones: tin (with th-stopping), fin (with th-fronting)

Adjective

thin (comparative thinner, superlative thinnest)

1. Having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite.

   • Out of spite, the human beings pretended not to believe that it was Snowball who had destroyed the windmill: they said that it had fallen down because the walls were too thin.

2. Very narrow in all diameters; having a cross section that is small in all directions.

3. Having little body fat or flesh; slim; slender; lean; gaunt.

   thin person

4. Of low viscosity or low specific gravity.

   Water is thinner than honey.

5. Scarce; not close, crowded, or numerous; not filling the space.

   The trees of a forest are thin; the corn or grass is thin.

   • Ferrara is very large, but extremely thin of people.

6. (golf) Describing a poorly played golf shot where the ball is struck by the bottom part of the club head. See fat, shank, toe.
7. Lacking body or volume; small; feeble; not full.

   • thin, hollow sounds, and lamentable screams

8. Slight; small; slender; flimsy; superficial; inadequate; not sufficient for a covering.

   a thin disguise

9. (aviation) Of a route: relatively little used.
   • 2016, Hartmut Wolf, ?Peter Forsyth, ?David Gillen, Liberalization in Aviation (page 105)

     In short, we previously found that thin routes benefit from an increase in competition in the Spanish airline market when considering routes that were monopoly routes in 2001.

10. Poor; scanty; without money or success.
    • 1945, Jack Henry, What Price Crime? (page 92)

      Like their friends the "draggers," the "hoisters" or shoplifters are having a thin time these days, […]

Synonyms

• (having little thickness from one surface to its opposite): narrow; see also Thesaurus:narrow
• (very narrow in all diameters): fine
• (having little body fat or flesh): reedy, skinny, slender, slim, svelte, waifish; see also Thesaurus:slender or Thesaurus:scrawny
• (of low viscosity): runny, watery; see also Thesaurus:runny
• (not close or crowded): spaced out, sparse; see also Thesaurus:diffuse
• (not numerous): scant, scarce, slight

Antonyms

• thick

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

thin (plural thins)

1. (philately) A loss or tearing of paper from the back of a stamp, although not sufficient to create a complete hole.
2. Any food produced or served in thin slices.

   chocolate mint thins

   potato thins

Translations

Verb

thin (third-person singular simple present thins, present participle thinning, simple past and past participle thinned)

1. (transitive) To make thin or thinner.
2. (intransitive) To become thin or thinner.

   The crowds thinned after the procession had passed: there was nothing more to see.

3. To dilute.
4. To remove some plants or parts of plants in order to improve the growth of what remains.

Derived terms

• thin out

Translations

Adverb

thin (comparative more thin, superlative most thin)

1. Not thickly or closely; in a scattered state.

   seed sown thin

   • 1623, Francis Bacon, A Discourse of a War with Spain

     Spain is a nation thin sown of people.

Further reading

• thin in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• thin in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• thin at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Nith, hint

Middle English

Etymology 1

Determiner

thin (subjective pronoun þou)

1. Alternative form of þin (“thy”)

Pronoun

thin (subjective þou)

1. Alternative form of þin (“thine”)

Etymology 2

Adjective

thin

1. Alternative form of thinne (“thin”)

Old Dutch

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *þ?n.

Determiner

th?n

1. thy, your (singular)
2. thine, yours

Inflection

Descendants

• Middle Dutch: dijn
  • Dutch: dijn
  • Limburgish: dien

Further reading

• “th?n”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012

Old High German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ði?n/

Determiner

th?n

1. Alternative form of din

References

1. Joseph Wright, An Old High German Primer, Second Edition

Old Saxon

Etymology 1

From Proto-West Germanic *þ?n.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?i?n/
• (late Old Saxon) IPA^(key): [ði?n]

Determiner

th?n

1. thy, your (singular)
2. thine, yours

Declension

See also

References

1. Köbler, Gerhard, Altsächsisches Wörterbuch, (5. Auflage) 2014
2. Altsächsisches Elementarbuch by Dr. F. Holthausen

Etymology 2

See here.

Determiner

thin

1. instrumental singular masculine/neuter of th?

Welsh

Noun

thin

1. Aspirate mutation of tin.

Mutation