different between white vs ill

English

Alternative forms

• whight, whyte, whyght (obsolete)
• White (race-related)

Etymology

From Middle English whit, hwit, from Old English hw?t, from Proto-West Germanic *hw?t, from Proto-Germanic *hw?taz (whence also West Frisian wyt, Dutch wit, German weiß, Norwegian Bokmål hvit, Norwegian Nynorsk kvit), from Proto-Indo-European *?weydós, a byform of *?weytós (“bright; shine”). Compare Lithuanian švi?sti (“to gleam”), šviesa (“light”), Old Church Slavonic ????? (sv?t?, “light”), ??????? (sv?t?l?, “clear, bright”), Persian ????? (sefid), Avestan ????????????????????????? (spa?ta, “white”), Sanskrit ????? (?vetá, “white, bright”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: w?t, IPA^(key): /wa?t/
• (without the wine–whine merger) enPR: hw?t, IPA^(key): /?a?t/
• Rhymes: -a?t
• Homophones: wight, Wight, wite (accents with the wine-whine merger)

Adjective

white (comparative whiter or more white, superlative whitest or most white)

1. Bright and colourless; reflecting equal quantities of all frequencies of visible light.
   • c. 1878, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Holidays"

     white as the whitest lily on a stream.

   • 1381, quoted in Hans Kurath & Sherman M. Kuhn, eds., Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, ISBN 978-0-472-01044-8, page 1242 (1961):

     dorr??, d?r? adj. & n. […] cook. glazed with a yellow substance; pome(s ~, sopes ~. […] 1381 Pegge Cook. Recipes page 114: For to make Soupys dorry. Nym onyons […] Nym wyn […] toste wyte bred and do yt in dischis, and god Almande mylk.

   Antonyms: black, nonwhite, unwhite

2. (sometimes capitalized) Of or relating to Caucasians, people of European descent with light-coloured skin.
3. (chiefly historical) Designated for use by Caucasians.

4. Relatively light or pale in colour.

5. Pale or pallid, as from fear, illness, etc.
6. (of a person or skin) Lacking coloration (tan) from ultraviolet light; not tanned.

   Synonyms: fair, pale

   Antonym: tanned

7. (of coffee or tea) Containing cream, milk, or creamer.

   Antonym: black

8. (board games, chess) The standard denomination of the playing pieces of a board game deemed to belong to the white set, no matter what the actual colour.

9. Pertaining to an ecclesiastical order whose adherents dress in white habits; Cistercian.
10. Honourable, fair; decent.

    • White as thy fame, and as thy honour clear.

    • 1916, Julia Frankau, Twilight

      He's a fine fellow, this Gabriel Stanton, a white man all through

    • 1953, Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye, Penguin, 2010, p.12:

      ‘We've only met twice and you've been more than white to me both times.’
11. Grey, as from old age; having silvery hair; hoary.
12. (archaic) Characterized by freedom from that which disturbs, and the like; fortunate; happy; favourable.
13. (obsolete) Regarded with especial favour; favourite; darling.

    • Come forth, my white spouse.

    • c. 1626, John Ford, Tis Pity She's a Whore

      I am his white boy, and will not be gulled.

14. (politics) Pertaining to constitutional or anti-revolutionary political parties or movements.
    • 1932, Duff Cooper, Talleyrand, Folio Society, 2010, p.163:

      Aimée de Coigny had always adopted with enthusiasm the political views of her ruling lover and she had thus already held nearly every shade of opinion from red republicanism to white reaction.

15. (of tea) Made from immature leaves and shoots.
16. (typography) Not containing characters; see white space.
17. (typography) Said of a symbol or character outline, not solid, not filled with color. Compare black (“said of a character or symbol filled with color”).

    Compare two Unicode symbols: ? = "WHITE RIGHT POINTING INDEX"; ? = "BLACK RIGHT POINTING INDEX"

18. Characterised by the presence of snow.

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• Bislama: waet
• Tok Pisin: wait
• ? Japanese: ???? (howaito)
• white fella
  • ? Nyunga: wadjela
• white gin
  • ? Gamilaraay: waatyin
  • ? Ngiyambaa: wadjiin
  • ? Wiradhuri: waajin

Translations

See white/translations § Adjective.

Noun

white (countable and uncountable, plural whites)

1. The color/colour of snow or milk; the colour of light containing equal amounts of all visible wavelengths.
2. A person of European descent with light-coloured skin.
3. Any butterfly of the family Pieridae.
4. (countable and uncountable) White wine.
5. (countable) Any object or substance that is of the color white.
   1. The albumen of bird eggs (egg white).
   2. (anatomy) The sclera, white of the eye.
   3. (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) The cue ball in cue games.
   4. (slang, US) Cocaine
   5. The snow- or ice-covered "green" in snow golf.
   6. A white pigment.

      Venice white

6. (archery) The central part of the butt, which was formerly painted white; the centre of a mark at which a missile is shot.
7. The enclosed part of a letter of the alphabet, especially when handwritten.
   • 1594, Hugh Plat, The Jewell House of Art and Nature, London, Chapter 38, p. 42,^[3]

     Also it giueth a great grace to your writing, if the whites of certeine letters bee made of one equall bignesse with the o. supposing the same were all round, as the white of the b. of the a. p. y. v. w. x. q. d. g. and s.

   • 1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, p. 18,^[4]

     […] the a. b. d. g. o. p. q. &c. […] must be made with equal whites.

   • 1931, Margery Allingham, Police at the Funeral, Penguin, 1939, Chapter 14, p. 157,^[5]

     She copied the whole alphabet like that, as though only the inside whites of the letters registered on her mind.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

white (third-person singular simple present whites, present participle whiting, simple past and past participle whited)

1. (transitive) To make white; to whiten; to bleach.

   • whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of […] uncleanness

   • so as no fuller on earth can white them

Derived terms

• white out

See also

• leucite
• leukoma
• leukosis
• Sauvignon blanc
• Svetambara
• terra alba

Further reading

• white on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Race on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• white on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

Anagrams

• withe

Middle English

Adjective

white

1. inflection of whit:
   1. weak singular
   2. strong/weak plural
2. Alternative form of whit

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