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SICKENING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Causing or able to cause nausea
Example:
a sickening stench
Synonyms:
loathsome; nauseating; nauseous; noisome; offensive; queasy; sickening; vile
Classified under:
Similar:
unwholesome (detrimental to physical or moral well-being)
Derivation:
sickeningness (extreme unpalatability to the mouth)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb sicken
Context examples:
Oh! My beloved sister, the sickening failing of your heart-felt expectations is, in prospect, more terrible to me than my own death.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
By midday, though we were well up in the northerly latitudes, the heat was sickening.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment; but rallying my wits, and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to order; and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder—how I cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester's movements a matter in which I had any cause to take a vital interest.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
They are sickening.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Yet, before I departed, there was a task to perform, on which I shuddered to reflect; I must pack up my chemical instruments, and for that purpose I must enter the room which had been the scene of my odious work, and I must handle those utensils the sight of which was sickening to me.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
The little airs he put on and the painful striving to assume the easy carriage of a man born to a dignified place in life would have been sickening had they not been ludicrous.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
