Illness

How to spell illness

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce illness

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does illness mean?

1. nounThe state of being physically or mentally unwell.

Illness in a sentence

• A sudden illness forced her to cancel the trip.

• The insurance policy covers loss of income due to illness.

Where does illness come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The word 'illness' is built from the adjective 'ill' plus the native suffix '-ness', which turns an adjective into a noun naming a state or quality. 'Ill' itself was borrowed into English from Old Norse 'illr', meaning 'bad', 'evil', or 'difficult', brought over by Scandinavian settlers during the Viking period. For several centuries 'ill' carried this broad sense of badness or harm, and only gradually narrowed toward its modern meaning of being unwell or sick. The compound 'illness', meaning the state of being sick, appears in English from around the 1600s, simply joining the adjective to the well established '-ness' ending also seen in 'happiness' and 'darkness'. The spelling trap lives entirely in the join: the base already ends in '-ll', and '-ness' adds its own 'n' and double 's', so the word stacks two 'l's and two 's's that writers must keep straight.

How the word is built

• ill (sick, from Old Norse illr 'bad')
• -ness (noun suffix forming a state or condition)