illness
part of speech
noun (an illness, illnesses; illness — uncountable)
meaning for a pupil
1) An illness is a disease or a time of being ill (sick). tree →
2) Illness (uncountable) is the state of being unwell. tree →
sense in the lessons
In health lessons, illnesses can be mild (a cold) or serious; some spread by germs (infectious), so washing hands, covering coughs and staying home when ill help stop them. Doctors, nurses and medicines treat illness. In everyday life, «off school because of illness». Phrases: «a serious illness», «a long illness», «recover from an illness».
examples
- Chickenpox is a common childhood illness. tree →
- He missed a week of school because of illness. tree →
- Wash your hands to stop illness spreading. tree →
- Grandpa is getting better after his illness. tree →
- Flu is an illness caused by a virus. tree →
- Some illnesses are passed on by coughing. tree →
- Tell a teacher if you feel illness coming on. tree →
- Eating well helps your body fight illness. tree →
- The Animals heard about the Stag's illness and came to ask after his health. tree →
note
From «ill» + «-ness»; double l and double s. Countable (an illness) or uncountable (illness in general). «Sick» and «ill» mean the same in many places, but in the UK «be sick» often means vomit.
In the corpora
- Not every illness needs medicine: a cold gets better on its own.
- Some illnesses in old age never go away; doctors call them chronic, and they can be controlled but not cured.
- When an old person gets confused or calls you the wrong name, it is the illness, not a lack of love.
- A homeless person has nowhere safe to live, often because of losing a job, a family breaking up or illness.
- That is the clearest lesson about health gossip: someone's illness is theirs to share.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «illness» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.