Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word sick. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word sick, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say sick in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word sick you have here. The definition of the word sick will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofsick, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
The "very good, excellent" sense is an ameliorativesemantic shift from the original sense of "in poor health". Compare similar semantic development in terrific and wicked.
a1420, The British Museum Additional MS, 12,056, “Wounds complicated by the Dislocation of a Bone”, in Robert von Fleischhacker, editor, Lanfranc’s “Science of cirurgie.”, London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co, translation of original by Lanfranc of Milan, published 1894, →ISBN, page 63:
Ne take noon hede to brynge togidere þe parties of þe boon þat is to-broken or dislocate, til viij. daies ben goon in þe wyntir, & v. in þe somer; for þanne it schal make quytture, and be sikir from swellynge; & þanne brynge togidere þe brynkis eiþer þe disiuncture after þe techynge þat schal be seid in þe chapitle of algebra.
‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared.’
My daughter was violently sick three times in the night.
1913, The Texas criminal reports, page 8:
In the meantime the old man had gotten up and gone out in the yard and began to vomit. Henry said I believe I feel sick and got up and went out. He went out one door and his father went out the other one. I did not think there was anything wrong with the coffee and I asked my wife to pour this out
1918, Cecil Day Lewis, The Whispering Roots, Jonathan Cape, page 140:
Q. Didn't he complain he was sick before he commenced to vomit? A. He did, just before he said, to me, “I feel sick,” I asked him if he wanted to throw up and he said yes.
1958, Gene D’Olive, Chiara, Signet Book:
trying hard to cry. Crying’s good. Crying teaches him to breathe. But I wish he weren’t crying from hunger. I feel dizzy. I sit down and feel a little sick. Maybe I’ll vomit, too. No, I never vomit. I feel sick, but I won’t vomit. I never vomit.
they're spitting and belching chunks of lentilly gunk. Looks like sick.
2010, Michael Jayfox, E. Chas McSween, Intravenus DeMilo, Enron Hubbard, Hunter McKenzie-Smythe, Flash Johnson, Things Bogans Like, Sydney: Hachette, page 80:
The bogan, true to form, laps it up like a dog does its own sick.
(British,colloquial) (especially in the phrases on the sick and on long-term sick) Any of various current or former benefits or allowances paid by the Government to support the sick, disabled or incapacitated.
1920, James Oliver Curwood, Back to God's Country:
"Wapi," she almost screamed, "go back! Sick 'em, Wapi—sick 'em—sick 'em—sick 'em!"
1938, Johannes Buchholtz, translated by Eugene Gay-Tifft, The Saga of Frank Dover, Kessinger Publishing edition, published 2005, →ISBN, page 125:
When we were at work swabbing the deck, necessarily barelegged, Pelle would sick the dog on us; and it was an endless source of pleasure to him when the dog succeeded in fastening its teeth in our legs and making the blood run down our ankles.