Meanings
plural sicklinesses
- uncountableusuallyThe state or characteristic of weakness, incapacity, or physical distress due to poor health, especially of a chronic nature.
I do beseech your majesty, impute his words To wayward sickliness and age in him.
1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act 2, scene 1]2 more examples
Gradually it gave place to a smile; a feeble, helpless, melancholy smile; bland, almost to sickliness.
1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, chapter 9, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLCMy devotions were disturbed with a feeling of languor and sickliness, and the tormenting fear of its becoming worse: and a depressing headache was generally my companion throughout the day.
1847 December, Acton Bell [pseudonym; Anne Brontë], chapter 7, in Agnes Grey. […], London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLCSynonyms: unwellness
Synonyms & antonyms
nounThe state or characteristic of weakness, incapacity, or physical distress due to poor health, especially of a chronic nature.
Origin
Translations
Irish meath-thinneas
- meath-thinneasthe state or characteristic of weakness, incapacity, or physical distress due to poor health
Cite this entry
sickliness. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sickliness
“sickliness.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sickliness. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “sickliness,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sickliness.
Source: sickliness on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.