different between debility vs sickness

English

Etymology

From Middle English debylite, from Old French debilité (French débilité), from Latin d?bilit?s (“weakness”), from d?bilis (“weak”), from d?- + habilis (“able”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d??b?l?ti/
• Rhymes: -?l?ti

Noun

debility (countable and uncountable, plural debilities)

1. A state of physical or mental weakness.
   • 1818, Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.

     As I was in a state of extreme debility, I resolved to sail directly towards the town, as a place where I could most easily procure nourishment.

     […]

     I was ready to sink from fatigue and hunger, but being surrounded by a crowd, I thought it politic to rouse all my strength, that no physical debility might be construed into apprehension or conscious guilt.

Related terms

• debile
• debilitate
• debilitation

Translations

Further reading

• debility in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• debility in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

English

Etymology

From Old English s?ocnes. Synchronically analyzable as sick +? -ness.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?kn?s/
• Hyphenation: sick?ness

Noun

sickness (usually uncountable, plural sicknesses)

1. The quality or state of being sick or diseased; illness.

   I do lament the sickness of the king. -William Shakespeare

   Trust not too much your now resistless charms; Those, age or sickness soon or late disarms. -Alexander Pope.

   Sickness is a dangerous indulgence at my time of life. -Jane Austen.

2. Nausea; qualmishness; as, sickness of stomach.
3. (linguistics) The analogical misuse of a rarer or marked grammatical case in the place of a more common or unmarked case.
   • 1997. Michael B. Smith. Quirky Case in Icelandic, § 4.7

     We can now return to the question of how we treat the phenomenon of dative sickness (the possibility of substituting dative in place of accusative on the experiencer nominal) in Icelandic.

Synonyms

• (quality or state of being sick): disease, illness, infirmity, malady

Derived terms

Translations

References

• sickness in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.