Sick, a. [Compar. Sicker; superl. Sickest.]
Etymology: [OE. sek, sik, ill, AS. seóc; akin to OS. siok, seoc, OFries. siak, D. ziek, G. siech, OHG. sioh, Icel. sj, Sw. sjuk, Dan. syg, Goth. siuks ill, siukan to be ill.]
1. Affected with disease of any kind; ill; indisposed; not in health. See the Synonym under Illness. Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever. Mark i. 30. Behold them that are sick with famine. Jer. xiv. 18.
2. Affected with, or attended by, nausea; inclined to vomit; as, sick at the stomach; a sick headache.
3. Having a strong dislike; disgusted; surfeited; -- with of; as, to be sick of flattery. He was not so sick of his master as of his work. L'Estrange.
4. Corrupted; imperfect; impaired; weakned. So great is his antipathy against episcopacy, that, if a seraphim himself should be a bishop, he would either find or make some sick feathers in his wings. Fuller. Sick bay (Naut.), an apartment in a vessel, used as the ship's hospital. -- Sick bed, the bed upon which a person lies sick. -- Sick berth, an apartment for the sick in a ship of war. -- Sick headache (Med.), a variety of headache attended with disorder of the stomach and nausea. -- Sick list, a list containing the names of the sick. -- Sick room, a room in which a person lies sick, or to which he is confined by sickness.
2 more senses
Note: [These terms, sick bed, sick berth, etc., are also written both hyphened and solid.]
Syn. -- Diseased; ill; disordered; distempered; indisposed; weak; ailing; feeble; morbid.
2 other Webster entries under this spelling
Sick, n.
Sickness. [Obs.] Chaucer.
Sick, v. i.
To fall sick; to sicken. [Obs.] Shak.
Shades of meaning
Fernald lists sick only as an antonym, under healthy.
Where he writes about it:
Sickness was generally used in English speech and literature, till the close of the eighteenth century at least, for every form of physical disorder, as abundantly appears in the English Bible: "Jesus went about ... healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people," Matt. iv, 23; "Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died," 2 Kings xiii, 14. — from disease
There is now, in England, a tendency to restrict the words sick and sickness to nausea, or "sickness at the stomach," and to hold ill and illness as the only proper words to use in a general sense. — from disease
This distinction has received but a very limited acceptance in the United States, where sick and sickness have the earlier and wider usage. — from disease