ill health
"ill-health" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ill health” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A state of illness, or bad health.
Corpus desk
Index EN-ill-health · ill health · English
ill health · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "I" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ill health |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “ill health” in English
Rare enough to double-check
ill health is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A state of illness, or bad health.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for ill health, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is ill health, spelled I-L-L- -H-E-A-L-T-H.
Definition
- 1A state of illness, or bad health.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how ill health appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I have to cancel my holidays due to continuing ill health.
There are the engines that develop ill-health and begin to lose time, or the wagons that develop hot boxes and have to be removed, initiating delays that steadily pile up—or at worst, the weather lays its hand on the whole District.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.