Word: sickly Part of Speech: adj Etymology: 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. Pronunciation: /ˈsɪkli/ 1. Frequently ill or in poor health; weakly. Example: a sickly child Example: 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. 2. Not in good health; (somewhat) sick. Example: Yes, bring me word, boy, if thy lord look well, For he went sickly forth: Example: For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep [i.e. have died]. 3. Characterized by poor or unhealthy growth. (of a plant) Example: [...] the good wheat on this land had turned sickly and yellow. Example: With the aid of the marigolds the roses flourished; in the control beds they were sickly and drooping. 4. Appearing ill, infirm or unhealthy; giving the appearance of illness. Example: a sickly pallor Example: 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. 5. Shedding a relatively small amount of light; (of light) not very bright. Example: The Moon grows sickly at the sight of day. Example: Night, and all her sickly dews, Her Spectres wan, and Birds of boding cry, 6. Lacking intensity or vigour. Example: a sickly smile Example: a sickly winter sun 7. Associated with poor moral or mental well-being. Example: 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. Example: These were not the ravings of imbecility, the sickly effusions of distempered brains; 8. Tending to produce nausea. Example: a sickly smell; sickly sentimentality Example: ‘Oh, what is that glides quickly where velvet flowers grow thickly, Their scent comes rich and sickly?’—‘A scaled and hooded worm.’ 9. Overly sweet. Example: […] he was again tasting the sickly welter of melted ice cream on his plate. Example: 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. 10. Marked by the occurrence of illness or disease (of a period of time). Labels: obsolete Example: This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. Example: 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, 11. Tending to produce disease or poor health. Labels: obsolete Example: a sickly autumn; a sickly climate Example: Has some sickly eastern waste Sent us a wind to parch us at a blast?