sickness
sick·ness/ˈsɪknɪs/noun
sickness is spelled S-I-C-K-N-E-S-S: 8 letters and 2 syllables (sick·ness). It appears 6.8 times per million words in written English, the 9,165th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, sickness means “The quality or state of being sick or diseased; illness; an illness” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of sickness is sicknesses.
How many letters and syllables are in sickness?
| Letters | 8: S-I-C-K-N-E-S-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: sick·ness |
| In writing | 6.8 times per million words; the 9,165th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is sickness?
Sickness appears 6.8 times per million words in written English, the 9,165th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce sickness?
- /ˈsɪknɪs/
Sickness has 2 syllables, split sick·ness in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-sickness.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of sickness
- sicknesses plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does sickness mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The quality or state of being sick or diseased; illness; an illness.
- 2
Nausea; qualmishness; as, sickness of stomach.
- 3
The analogical misuse of a rarer or marked grammatical case in the place of a more common or unmarked case.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Sickness in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | maladie , nausée |
| German | Krankheit , Brechreiz, Nausea, Übelkeit, Übelsein |
| Portuguese | doença , enjoo |
| Spanish | enfermedad, dolencia |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does sickness come from?
Inherited from Middle English sikness, from Old English sēocnes, sēocness, sēocnys, sēocnyss. By surface analysis, sick + -ness.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).