illness
noun/ˈɪl.nəs/
Etymology From ill + -ness.
1
An instance (episode) of a disease or poor health.
- Her grandmother had passed away after a long illness.
- suffer form a severe illness
2 more examples
- a mild illness
- 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.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:
2
A state of bad health or disease.
- Many working days this year have been lost through illness.
- Illness is a wholistic reality, just as health is wholistic, and healing is the process of moving from illness to health.2012, Anne Westhues, Canadian Social Policy: Issues and Perspectives:
- Synonyms
- sickness
- Derived terms
- accelerated critical illness, chronic illness, critical illness, final illness, folk illness, foodborne illness, food-derived illness, Gulf War illness, illnesslike, mental illness, nonillness, postorgasmic illness syndrome, seroconversion illness, terminal illness
- Related terms
- ill, hypochondriac