sickliness

English

Etymology

sickly + -ness

Noun

sickliness (usually uncountable, plural sicklinesses)

  1. The state or characteristic of weakness, incapacity, or physical distress due to poor health, especially of a chronic nature.
    • c. 1595, William Shakespeare, Richard II, act 2, scene 1:
      I do beseech your majesty, impute his words
      To wayward sickliness and age in him.
    • 1843, Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, chapter 9:
      Gradually it gave place to a smile; a feeble, helpless, melancholy smile; bland, almost to sickliness.
    • 1847, Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey, chapter 7:
      My devotions were disturbed with a feeling of languor and sickliness, and the tormenting fear of its becoming worse: and a depressing headache was generally my companion throughout the day.

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