# sickly
## English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈsɪkli/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɪkli

### Etymology 1

From Middle English seekly, sekely, siklich, sekeliche, equivalent to sick +‎ -ly. Possibly a modification of Old English sīcle (“sickly”) and/or derived from Old Norse sjúkligr (“sickly”). Cognate with Dutch ziekelijk, Middle High German siechlich, Danish sygelig, Swedish sjuklig, Icelandic sjúklegur. The verb is from the adjective.

#### Adjective

sickly (comparative sicklier, superlative sickliest)
* Frequently ill or in poor health; weakly.
    a sickly child
** 1759, Tobias Smollett, letter dated 16 March, 1759, in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, London: Charles Dilly, 1791, Volume 1, p. 190,
    [...] the boy is a sickly lad, of a delicate frame, and particularly subject to a malady in his throat, which renders him very unfit for his Majesty’s service.
** 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter 14, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 151:She is unfortunately of a sickly constitution, which has prevented her making that progress in many accomplishments which she could not otherwise have failed of;
** 1982, Anne Tyler, chapter 1, in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant‎, New York: Ballantine, published 2008, page 4:[...] the sharp-scented bottle of crystals that sickly Cousin Bertha had carried to ward off fainting spells.
* Not in good health; (somewhat) sick.
** 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]:Yes, bring me word, boy, if thy lord look well, For he went sickly forth:
** 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Corinthians 11:30:For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep [i.e. have died].
** 1782, Samuel Johnson, letter dated 20 March, 1782, in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, London: Charles Dilly, 1791, Volume 2, p. 419,
    The season was dreary, I was sickly, and found the friends sickly whom I went to see.
** 1850, Charlotte Brontë, letter dated 29 April, 1850, in Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë, London: Smith, Elder, 1857, Chapter 6, p. 157,
    Papa continues far from well; he is often very sickly in the morning,
** 1958, Muriel Spark, chapter 9, in Robinson‎, New York: New Directions, published 2003, page 128:Miguel’s temperature was normal that day, though he was still sickly and restless.
* Characterized by poor or unhealthy growth. (of a plant)
** 1931, Pearl S. Buck, chapter 27, in The Good Earth‎, New York: Modern Library, published 1944, page 236:[...] the good wheat on this land had turned sickly and yellow.
** 1962, Rachel Carson, chapter 6, in Silent Spring‎, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 79:With the aid of the marigolds the roses flourished; in the control beds they were sickly and drooping.
* Appearing ill, infirm or unhealthy; giving the appearance of illness.
    a sickly pallor
** 1782, Frances Burney, Cecilia, London: T. Payne and Son, and T. Cadell, Volume 1, Book 1, Chapter 9, p. 121,
    [...] she exhibited a countenance so wretched, and a complection so sickly, that Cecilia was impressed with horror at the sight.
** 1791, Elizabeth Inchbald, chapter 12, in A Simple Story‎, volume 3, London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, pages 161–162:[...] he saw him arrive with his usual florid appearance: had he come pale and sickly, Sandford had been kind to him; but in apparent good health and spirits, he could not form his mouth to tell him he was “glad to see him.”
** 1961, Joseph Heller, chapter 39, in Catch-22‎, New York: Dell:Yossarian [...] could not wipe from his mind the excruciating image of the barefoot boy with sickly cheeks [...]
* Shedding a relatively small amount of light; (of light) not very bright.
    Synonyms: faint, pale, wan
** 1665, John Dryden, The Indian Emperour‎, London: H. Herringman, published 1667, act II, page 17:The Moon grows sickly at the sight of day.
** 1757, Thomas Gray, Odes‎, Dublin: G. Faulkner and J. Rudd, page 5:Night, and all her sickly dews, Her Spectres wan, and Birds of boding cry,
** 1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], Shirley. A Tale. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 85:Mr. Moore haunted his mill, his mill-yard, his dye-house, and his warehouse, till the sickly dawn strengthened into day.
** 1870–1871 (date written), Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXXII, in Roughing It, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company [et al.], published 1872, →OCLC, page 235:It [the match] lit, burned blue and sickly, and then budded into a robust flame.
** 2006, Sarah Waters, The Night Watch‎, London: Virago, 1944, section 2, p. 226:Duncan saw the men through a haze of wire and cigarette smoke and sickly, artificial light;
* Lacking intensity or vigour.
    Synonyms: faint, feeble, insipid, weak
    a sickly smile
** 1730, James Thomson, The Tragedy of Sophonisba‎, London: A. Millar, act II, scene 1, page 19:What man of soul would [...] run, Day after day, the still-returning round Of life’s mean offices, and sickly joys; But in compassion to mankind?
** 1779, Hannah More, The Fatal Falsehood‎, London: T. Cadell, act II, page 27:[...] my credulous heart [...] fondly loves to cherish The feeble glimmering of a sickly hope.
** 1961, Robert A. Heinlein, chapter 19, in Stranger in a Strange Land, New York: Avon, →OCLC:He held a vast but carefully concealed distaste for all things American […] their manners, their bastard architecture and sickly arts … and their blind, pathetic, arrogant belief in their superiority long after their sun had set.
* Associated with poor moral or mental well-being.
    Synonym: unhealthy
** 1766, [Oliver Goldsmith], chapter 3, in The Vicar of Wakefield: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Salisbury, Wiltshire: […] B. Collins, for F[rancis] Newbery, […], →OCLC, page 27:The slightest distress, whether real or fictitious, touched him to the quick, and his soul laboured under a sickly sensibility of the miseries of others.
** 1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, “The Same Subject Continued [The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed]”, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1792, →OCLC, page 77:These were not the ravings of imbecility, the sickly effusions of distempered brains;
** 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter 2, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London, New York, N.Y., Melbourne, Vic.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC, page 33:Don’t squander the gold of your days [...] trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. These are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age.
** 1964, Saul Bellow, Herzog‎, New York: Viking, page 319:[...] I know how you came to despise all that sickly Wagnerian idiocy and bombast.
** 2018, Anna Burns, Milkman‎, London: Faber & Faber, part 4:That he had some sickly compulsion neurosis, they said, was very plain for all eyes to see.
* Tending to produce nausea.
    Synonyms: nauseating, sickening
    a sickly smell; sickly sentimentality
** 1865, Christina Rossetti, “Amor Mundi”, in Goblin Market; The Prince’s Progress; and Other Poems‎, London: Macmillan, published 1875, page 286:‘Oh, what is that glides quickly where velvet flowers grow thickly, Their scent comes rich and sickly?’—‘A scaled and hooded worm.’
** 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter 23, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, pages 197-198:[…] it warn’t no perfumery neither, not by a long sight. I smelt sickly eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things;
** 1895 May 7, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 4, in The Time Machine: An Invention, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC, page 32:[…] the sickly jarring and swaying of the machine [...] had absolutely upset my nerve.
** 1944, Katherine Anne Porter, “The Leaning Tower”, in The Leaning Tower and Other Stories‎, New York: Harcourt, Brace, page 173:He had scanty discouraged hair the color of tow, and a sickly, unpleasant breath.
* Overly sweet.
    Synonyms: cloying, saccharine
** 1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 9, in Babbitt, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC, page 123:[…] he was again tasting the sickly welter of melted ice cream on his plate.
** 1929 November, Robert Graves, chapter XII, in Good-bye to All That: An Autobiography, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 132:After a meal of bread, bacon, rum and bitter stewed tea sickly with sugar, we went up through the broken trees to the east of the village and up a long trench to battalion headquarters.
** 1950, Mervyn Peake, chapter 80, in Gormenghast‎, New York: Ballantine, published 1968, page 562:The honey tasted sickly in his mouth.
* (obsolete) Marked by the occurrence of illness or disease (of a period of time).
** c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
** a. 1768, Laurence Sterne, undated letter in Original Letters, London: Logographic Press, 1788, pp. 110-111,
    [...] if I thought the sentiments of your last letter were not the sentiments of a sickly moment—if I could be made to believe, for an instant, that they proceeded from you, in a sober, reflecting condition of your mind—I should give you over as incurable,
** 1798, Thomas Malthus, chapter 7, in An Essay on the Principle of Population‎, London: J. Johnson, page 115:[...] the three years immediately following the last period [...] were years so sickly that the births were sunk to 10, 229, and the burials raised to 15, 068.
* (obsolete) Tending to produce disease or poor health.
    Synonyms: insalubrious, unhealthy, unwholesome
    a sickly autumn; a sickly climate
** 1782, William Cowper, “The Progress of Error”, in Poems, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 54:Has some sickly eastern waste Sent us a wind to parch us at a blast?
** 1867, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, transl., The Divine Comedy: Inferno‎, London: Routledge, Canto 20, lines 79-81, p. 64:Not far it [the water] runs before it finds a plain In which it spreads itself, and makes it marshy, And oft ’tis wont in summer to be sickly.

##### Derived terms

* sicklify
* sicklily
* sickliness

##### Translations
#### Verb

sickly (third-person singular simple present sicklies, present participle sicklying, simple past and past participle sicklied)
* (transitive, archaic, literary) To make (something) sickly.
** c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
** 1763, Charles Churchill, An Epistle to William Hogarth‎, London: for the author, page 12:Thy Drudge contrives, and in our full career Sicklies our hopes with the pale hue of Fear;
** 1840, S. M. Heaton, edited by George Heaton, Thoughts on the Litany, by a naval officer’s orphan daughter‎, London: William Edward Painter, Section 4, p. 58:[…] a cancer gnawing at the root of happiness, defeating every aim at permanent good in this world, and sicklying all sublunary joys […]
** 1862, Gail Hamilton, “Men and Women”, in Country Living and Country Thinking‎, Boston: Ticknor and Fields, page 109:He evidently thinks the sweet little innocents never heard or thought of such a thing before, and would go on burying their curly heads in books, and sicklying their rosy faces with “the pale cast of thought” till the end of time […]
** 2000, Ninian Smart, chapter 9, in World Philosophies‎, New York: Routledge, page 207:Ockham was critical of so many of his fellows for sicklying over theology with the obscurities of philosophy.
* (intransitive, rare) To become sickly.
** 1889, Samuel Cox, An Expositor’s Notebook, London: Richard D. Dickinson, 7th edition, Chapter 26, p. 364,
    But the seven most prominent Apostles […] still hang together, their hearts tormented with eager yet sad questionings, their hopes fast sicklying over with the pale hues of doubt.

### Etymology 2

From sick +‎ -ly.

#### Adverb

sickly (comparative more sickly, superlative most sickly)
* In a sick manner; in a way that reflects or causes sickness.
    sickly pale; to cough sickly
** 1818, John Keats, Endymion‎, London: Taylor and Hessey, Book 2, lines 859-861, p. 93:[…] he sickly guess’d How lone he was once more, and sadly press’d His empty arms together […]
** 1939, John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath‎, New York: Viking, published 1962, Chapter , p. 364:The dazed man stared sickly at Casy.
** 1961, Bernard Malamud, A New Life‎, Penguin, published 1968, Chapter , p. 185:For ten brutal minutes he was in torment, then the pain gradually eased. He felt sickly limp but relieved, thankful for his good health.
** 2010, Rowan Somerville, chapter 9, in The End of Sleep‎, New York: Norton, page 66:The creaseless horizontal face of the giant smiled sickly, leering.

##### Derived terms

* sickly sweet

### References

* ↑ “sickly, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
* ↑ “sickly, adv.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.