SICKEN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does sicken mean? 

• SICKEN (verb)
  The verb SICKEN has 4 senses:

1. cause aversion in; offend the moral sense of

2. get sick

3. upset and make nauseated

4. make sick or ill

  Familiarity information: SICKEN used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SICKEN (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they sicken    ... he / she / it sickens   
Past simple: sickened   
Past participle: sickened   
-ing form: sickening   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cause aversion in; offend the moral sense of

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

churn up; disgust; nauseate; revolt; sicken

Context example:

The pornographic pictures sickened us

Hypernyms (to "sicken" is one way to...):

repel; repulse (be repellent to; cause aversion in)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "sicken"):

appal; appall; offend; outrage; scandalise; scandalize; shock (strike with disgust or revulsion)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

The performance is likely to sicken Sue

Sense 2

Meaning:

Get sick

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Synonyms:

come down; sicken

Context example:

She fell sick last Friday, and now she is in the hospital

Hypernyms (to "sicken" is one way to...):

decline; worsen (grow worse)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "sicken"):

wan (become pale and sickly)

contract; get; take (be stricken by an illness, fall victim to an illness)

canker (become infected with a canker)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Sense 3

Meaning:

Upset and make nauseated

Classified under:

Verbs of seeing, hearing, feeling

Synonyms:

nauseate; sicken; turn one's stomach

Context example:

The mold on the food sickened the diners

Hypernyms (to "sicken" is one way to...):

disgust; gross out; repel; revolt (fill with distaste)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

Sense 4

Meaning:

Make sick or ill

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Context example:

This kind of food sickens me

Hypernyms (to "sicken" is one way to...):

harm (cause or do harm to)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "sicken"):

choke; gag (cause to retch or choke)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

 Context examples 

It sickens me to think of it.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

An international group of researchers has found that plastic trash entering the world’s oceans attracts microbes that cause corals to sicken and die.

(Plastic debris linked to coral disease, death, SciDev.Net)

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)

“But I have taken to tennis now instead. A painful incident happened the last time that I was out, and it sickened me of it.”

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Faugh! it sickens me to think of it.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

"When will he come? When will he come?" I cried inwardly, as the night lingered and lingered—as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned, sickened: and neither day nor aid arrived.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Each rolling mountain whelmed them from view, and I would wait with sickening anxiety, fearing that they would never appear again.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

This sickened her of America, and she came back to live with a maiden aunt at Pinner, in Middlesex.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The blooms occur when phytoplankton grow rapidly, sometimes producing toxins that can sicken marine mammals and other species.

(Scientists discover genetic basis for how harmful algae blooms become toxic, National Science Foundation)

She had, indeed, scarcely the shadow of a hope to soothe her mind, and was reduced to so low and wan and trembling a condition, as no mother, not unkind, except Mrs. Price could have overlooked, when the third day did bring the sickening knock, and a letter was again put into her hands.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)