sick call

noun

A daily lineup of military personnel requiring medical attention.

Meanings

nounsick call (plural sick calls)

plural sick calls

  1. USgovernmentA daily lineup of military personnel requiring medical attention.
  2. The opportunity that allows prisoners to request medical attention.

    Ten prisons have sick call twice a day and three handle such complaints three times a day .

    1940, Wayne Lyman Morse, The Attorney General's Survey of Release Procedures
    1 more example

    In the health care system in corrections, periodically we will find people who will want to go to sick call, and correctional officers will say, "You just want to goof off, you don't need medical care." In the correctional setting we need that kind of [serological] information so that this person can go to sick call without having a confrontation with the local officer.

    1985 December 7, Christine Guilfoy, Bailus Walker, “Quarantine Is No Way To Fight AIDS”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 21, page 9

Synonyms & antonyms

nounthe daily military formation at which individuals report to the medical officer as sick

Broader
military formation
Also see

Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Cite this entry
APA

sick call. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sick%20call

MLA

“sick call.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sick%20call. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “sick call,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sick%20call.

Source: sick call on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.