I am sick or I am ill
I am sick
I am ill
Are there any differences between them?. Or, are they interchangeable?.
As always, It would be interesting to know your answers. Thank you.
17 Answers
Ill is often used to mean ‘unwell’ in British English.
In American English, ill is unusual except in a formal style. Note that we use ill after a verb.
She is ill.
Peter didn’t come because he was ill.
In attributive position (before a noun), many British people prefer to use sick. Sick is also the normal informal American word for unwell.
The President is sick.
He spent years looking after his sick father.
Be sick can mean ‘vomit’.
I was sick three times in the night.
She is never sea-sick.
I feel sick. Where is the bathroom? / Note: In America I feel sick to my stomach.
In America, at least, you would commonly say, "I am sick." more often than "I am ill." The word "ill" is a much more formal way of saying "sick" and is used at times but not nearly as often as the word "sick" .But let me give you a few examples of how these are most commonly used, and you'll get the hang of it. This is NOT a formal grammatical lesson, you'd have to get that from Q or from Lazarus, but this is what I can do:
I'm going to call in sick today. (not going to work because you don't feel well)
You don't look so good....are you sick?
I'm feeling sick to my stomach.
I'm feeling ill at ease. (very uncomfortable about a situation.
That was terrible news. I'm feeling just sick about it.
He suffered from a terrible illness.
(said to your boss) "I'm feeling too ill to come in today."
(said to everyone else) "Im feeling too sick to come in today."
My dog got sick, and she died.
"John Smith fell ill after eating from the restaurant, which the Health Department has now closed." (a more formal way of saying he got sick from eating the food). This may be seen in a news account, but you would not hear it in spoken English.
Hope these examples help, Nila.
Hi! I know one diference between them You could say "I am sick" if you are pregnant for example which means that your stomach is not ok maybe because you eat something, so you have the feeling of vomiting, but if you are"ill", means that you have an infection or something clinical. Sorry if I am not clear Bye
You can say
I feel sick. (most common)
I feel ill. (uncommon in the US)
I feel sick to my stomach. (very common)
but never
I feel ill to my stomach.
For vomiting, we (in the UK at least) might say: "I'm going to be sick" or "I'm going to be ill" (much more formal), or "I'm going to throw-up".
If it's a general way of saying that you are poorly, then sick and ill are interchangeable and I would use either without thinking about it.
In terms of having unsound psyhical or mental health, it is interchangeable with sick. However it used other ways meaning more or less unfitting or inapropriate here's the complete definiton
I mean, perhaps the word "ill" and "sick" are interchangeable, but not when we are talking about the feeling of vomiting. Then, I would use "sick".
I believe to avoid the confusion, I would use the word "nauseous" in this sentence or context:
"The paint fumes are making me nauseous."
It would not be incorrect to say:
"The smell of the paint is making me ill."
However, as already mentioned, the word "ill" is a bit antiquated or old-fashioned, at least in the U.S. We do use the word "illness" frequently. But the most common expressions that would make sense in your example would be:
The smell of the paint (paint fumes).....
"is/are making me sick."
"is/are upsetting my stomach."
"is/are making me sick to my stomach."
"is/are making me nauseous."
To say it another way, since the word "ill" is not as commonly used, if you were to tell me that "The smell of the paint was making you ill.", in my opinion, I would not take it as seriously as if you used the other expressions. I'm not sure how to explain this without being too confusing, but I commonly hear people say the following expressions to get a point across. However, they are more or less just complaining rather than expressing that fact that they are in any serious trouble.
Here are some examples of using "ill" in a less serious situation:
"This conversation is making me ill."
"You must be ill, you have not insulted me yet today."
"Just thinking about all of the work I have to do is making me ill."
Other expressions include:
"There is no ill will between the brothers."
"She was wearing an ill-fitted dressed at the wedding."
"I am always ill at ease with my mother-in-law."
"She made an ill attempt of apologizing."
"The paint fumes are making me nauseous."
For the picky among you, if such there be ... My desktop dictionary (which is only about twenty years old) labels this usage as 'colloquial' and gives the basic definition of 'nauseous' as "causing nausea" / sickening / disgusting. The formal equivalent of the above would be "The paint fumes are making me nauseated."
This used to be a "hot button" issue with English teachers (much like infer/imply) but I think that they've mostly given up the battle.
I'm getting sick of this thread 
But seriously, in my experience, people who are more educated tend to use ill and sick interchangably for variety, while lesser educated people use 'sick' somewhat more often. Just my experience.
Here in the southeastern mountains of the United States, "ill" is used colloquially to mean "in a bad mood" or "angry."
- Don't talk to him about politics, it makes him ill.
That doesn't mean the person becomes nauseated but that he becomes angry.
- He's ill with me.
Means: He's angry at me.
Perhaps this will muddle up the answer even more. Are you ill with me now?
In Scotland we can use four adjectives:
ill
unwell
sick
poorly
I would say that the most commonly used is "sick". We have a hospital in Edinburgh (the capital city) called The Sick Kids, so "sick" is not as informal here as it seems to be in other places (reading the comments above). Here, "sick" and "ill" are pretty much interchangable, although "ill" may sound a little more serious. I think in degrees of severity we would have:
- unwell
- sick
- ill
- poorly
.
But that's just my understanding of Scottish English, other people may have different understandings. I suppose the degree of severity would mostly depend upon the context.
.
Also bear in mind that "sick" has various other meanings (por ejemplo: horrible, feo, loco, "enfermo" en el sentido de "loco", etc).
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¡Buena pregunta!
wow, so many explanations... As I was studying English I can say how it is formally... "I am ill" (meaning: I am not feeling well - in a general sense) is formal British whereas in the US people would say: "I am sick, I feel sick" meaning the same". In British (again: formal) "I am sick" means: "I have problems with my stomach" I never found this differentation in the US. Though, in real life (as we see above) "ill" is gradually going out of use being perceived as too "old-fashioned"... Maybe, maybe...
In the US it is very common to hear this usage. I don't know about other countries.
That's true in the UK as well. However, we don't tend to use the reverse meaning, where 'sick' can infer something that was really really good.
"Wow, that was sick, dude". Seems to have come from the skating / surfing / snowboarding / skiing groups. It does get used in the UK, but mostly by teenagers wanting to sound more American.
It is also beneficial to know that the word "sick" can mean "gross" or "disgusting" or "psychologically unbalanced".
Some examples:
"That is a sick way to look at things."
"This is a sick movie."
"That way of thinking is just sick."
"Sick! I just saw a dead animal on the side of the road!"
In the US it is very common to hear this usage. I don't know about other countries.
In American English, ill is generally more serious than sick.
The phrases mental illness and terminally ill are frequently used, but mental sickness and terminally sick are never used. The word sick has a lot more colloquial uses than ill, although rhyming with chill has made ill popular in some circles.
