What's the difference between ill and sick?

Question

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Answer 1

Sick is: Suffering from or affected or Nauseated it can also mean Mentally ill or disturbed and unwholesome

ILL is: Not healthy, Not normal; unsound or Not favorable; unpropitious: ill predictions.

Answer 2

I'd say there is no practical difference between the two words. They are synonyms. "Sick" has an Anglo-Saxon origin while "ill" has an Old Norse (Viking) origin but that's the way it goes. Sometimes a foreign word and a native word coexist with each other in a language much like say, 'chango' and 'mono' for "monkey" in Mexican Spanish where the former is Nahuatl and the latter is Castilian Spanish.

Answer 3

The word "sick" is the old fashioned one and like many old English terms, it is used in United States English. It is quite acceptable to use it in the United Kingdom for being ill, but it is less common than "ill" when used with the verb "to be".

However, it is common as an adjective to describe being ill. There is, for example, a famous hospital in London called the Hospital for Sick Children. It wouldn't be possible to say "ill childen" -- it just sounds odd.

Of course, when we want to vomit, we say "I feel sick" or "I'm about to be sick". Perhaps that's why we don't like the word so much!

Answer 4

In British English, if you are "ill", you are unwell; if you are "sick", you vomit.
In American English, which tends to be simpler, I think you use "sick" where the Brits would use "ill", and it doesn't mean you're about to puke.

Answer 5

hello from serbia!
Well,it is a hard question,but,I am not English girl or American and our english professor told us that ill is when you`ve got temperature,or you are ill,you know?:)
And sick is when you`ve got to throw up!