Library / English Dictionary

SICKEN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Get sick

Example:

She fell sick last Friday, and now she is in the hospital

Synonyms:

come down; sicken

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Hypernyms (to "sicken" is one way to...):

decline; worsen (grow worse)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "sicken"):

wan (become pale and sickly)

contract; get; take (be stricken by an illness, fall victim to an illness)

canker (become infected with a canker)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make sick or ill

Example:

This kind of food sickens me

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Hypernyms (to "sicken" is one way to...):

harm (cause or do harm to)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "sicken"):

choke; gag (cause to retch or choke)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

Sense 3

Meaning:

Cause aversion in; offend the moral sense of

Example:

The pornographic pictures sickened us

Synonyms:

churn up; disgust; nauseate; revolt; sicken

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "sicken" is one way to...):

repel; repulse (be repellent to; cause aversion in)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "sicken"):

appal; appall; offend; outrage; scandalise; scandalize; shock (strike with disgust or revulsion)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

The performance is likely to sicken Sue

Sense 4

Meaning:

Upset and make nauseated

Example:

The mold on the food sickened the diners

Synonyms:

nauseate; sicken; turn one's stomach

Classified under:

Verbs of seeing, hearing, feeling

Hypernyms (to "sicken" is one way to...):

disgust; gross out; repel; revolt (fill with distaste)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

Credits

 Context examples: 

I saw what I saw, I heard what I heard, and my soul sickened at it; and yet now when that sight has faded from my eyes, I ask myself if I believe it, and I cannot answer.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The jibs behind me cracked aloud, the rudder slammed to, the whole ship gave a sickening heave and shudder, and at the same moment the main-boom swung inboard, the sheet groaning in the blocks, and showed me the lee after-deck.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I tell you it was sickening.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I sickened as I read. ‘Hateful day when I received life!’ I exclaimed in agony. ‘Accursed creator!

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

You of importance to him in any way? Go! your folly sickens me.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

When the attendants rushed in, and we turned our attention to him, his employment positively sickened me.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

At the same moment, as though I had been struck myself, I felt a sickening shock in the pit of my stomach.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

But his love of me is wonderful; I go further: I, who sicken and freeze at the mere thought of him, when I recall the abjection and passion of this attachment, and when I know how he fears my power to cut him off by suicide, I find it in my heart to pity him.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The steamy smell of dirty clothes, which had entered with her from the kitchen, was sickening.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

On the third day my mother sickened; her fever was accompanied by the most alarming symptoms, and the looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the worst event.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)