How to Use sickly in a Sentence

sickly

1 of 2 adjective
Definition of sicklynext
Synonyms for sicklynext
  • As a child, Dad was small and sickly and shy to a fault.
    — Dallas News, 1 Dec. 2022
  • His first glance was the frown of the man; the second was the bland and sickly smile of the demagogue.
    — Washington Post, 3 Sep. 2021
  • This is not made up or in the minds of people who are sickly.
    — Meghan O'Rourke, The Atlantic, 8 Mar. 2021
  • The youngest, Mark, was the sickly boy who inspired his mom to bake whole-wheat bread.
    — Fox News, 24 June 2022
  • One of our sickly little birds lands on Mr. Frame and gives him a peck.
    — George Saunders, The New Yorker, 2 Nov. 2020
  • Covid isn’t fatal, the tests are a sham, and says Kuzma was just a sickly man.
    — Sam Kestenbaum, Rolling Stone, 17 Sep. 2022
  • Beneath its spines the skin wrinkled and stayed a sickly green.
    — Jackie Polzin, Star Tribune, 6 July 2021
  • There can be a sort of sickly, sweet chemical type of smell and taste.
    — Sandee Lamotte, CNN, 1 Oct. 2022
  • Camera feeds near the Fawn fire showed sickly orange-gray smoke rolling across the sky.
    — Hayley Smith, Los Angeles Times, 24 Sep. 2021
  • When this happens, your shrub’s leaves look pale or sickly and may even drop off.
    — oregonlive, 18 Dec. 2022
  • The sickly, plastic smell still lingers inside and clings to the creek, Sulphur Run, a few feet from her door.
    — Emily Cochrane, New York Times, 19 Feb. 2023
  • But that was as sickly as the Bills' offense has looked since the second half of the Pittsburgh game on opening day.
    — Sal Maiorana, USA TODAY, 1 Nov. 2021
  • The dog is unable to be shown, will not be able to be bred is likely to remain sickly, the complaint said.
    — Cathy Kozlowicz, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 31 Oct. 2019
  • Drink a big cup full of sickly-sweet liquid, get your blood tested.
    — Anna Claire Vollers | Avollers@al.com, al, 26 Mar. 2020
  • Through those fake holes in the sickly wallpaper are glimpses of dark skies twinkling with stars.
    — Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, 20 Oct. 2023
  • By mid-summer, the air was perfumed with ripe apricots and the sickly sweetness of the fallen fruits.
    — Grace Hwang Lynch, SFChronicle.com, 31 Oct. 2019
  • There was a sickly little orange one with a head that wobbled back and forth.
    — Kathryn Scanlan, Harper’s Magazine , 20 July 2022
  • The fine dust turned the surface of the sea the colour of butter and left a bright, lemony line on shore that marked the extent of high tide and gave off a sickly sweet smell.
    — The Economist, 4 July 2019
  • The glow of the screen cast a sickly pallor on his gaunt face, highlighting the shadows beneath his eyes.
    — Adi Robertson, The Verge, 24 May 2023
  • But Highlands’ eggnog isn’t of the thick and sickly sweet variety that comes from a carton.
    — al, 12 Dec. 2019
  • Best of all is the scent—like an array of roses instead of strong, sickly acetone.
    — Tiffany Dodson, SELF, 18 Mar. 2021
  • The taste: Despite the visible vanilla bean flecks, the flavor was sickly and fake.
    — Ali Francis, Bon Appétit, 29 Aug. 2022
  • The smoke had covered the Bay Area for weeks—white, then yellow, like teargas, then crimson, then a sickly pink.
    — Dave Eggers, The New Yorker, 11 Oct. 2020
  • It is not lost on me that rebel white folks remain the reason for such a sickly America.
    — Ida Harris, Essence, 21 Dec. 2020
  • Natalia Zhdanova, 40, found Fedya as a weak and sickly stray in her backyard when the cat was just a few days old.
    — People Staff, PEOPLE.com, 28 Sep. 2021
  • The clarinet then falls silent, yet the sonority retains a sickly air.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 30 Nov. 2022
  • The couple disregard the advice, and the woman gives birth to a sickly infant.
    — Audrey Farley, The Atlantic, 15 July 2019
  • Who would have thought the 2019 team, with the third-fewest runs in the majors and so many sickly batting statistics, would fall three runs short of matching the feat?
    — Henry Schulman, SFChronicle.com, 4 July 2019
  • But at 87 years old, barely into middle age, the tree is sickly.
    — New York Times, 28 May 2022
  • Near the end, yellowed skin and a bloated body put the often silent, slow-moving disease on sickly display.
    — Ben Tanen, Washington Post, 8 Feb. 2024
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sickly

2 of 2 adverb
  • Much of the new landscape looked rather sickly then and now.
    — oregonlive, 26 Jan. 2023
  • Did the sickly-sweet chocolates at the end come from Russell Stover?
    — Dallas News, 14 Apr. 2022
  • And maybe the spice that keeps it from becoming too sickly sweet.
    — Matt Brennan, Los Angeles Times, 22 Dec. 2021
  • At the same time that greasy stain is climbing up the side of the Peep, that sickly Peep flavor is seeping out across the pizza.
    — al, 4 Apr. 2021
  • Still, Shopsin resists the urge to veer sickly-sweet in her nostalgia.
    — Wired Staff, Wired, 26 Nov. 2021
  • The plants get seven hours of sunlight, but the leaves are really sickly looking.
    — Neil Sperry, San Antonio Express-News, 10 Sep. 2021
  • And pretty soon the penguins could be looking kinda sickly.
    — Washington Post, 30 Dec. 2020
  • Instead of sickly-sweet root beer, pour a bold, smooth, and complex All Out Extra Dark over a glass of rich and creamy ice cream (non-dairy versions work too) for an ice-cream float with a bite.
    — Outside Online, 9 Nov. 2022
  • However, the rose in this hair oil isn't sickly sweet, and actually smells like the real thing, not a chemical copy.
    — Tatjana Freund, Marie Claire, 26 Aug. 2020
  • The artist Samara Golden has spent months painting guts — lurid, swollen, sinuous forms in bloody red, purplish-blue or a sickly yellow.
    — Jacqui Palumbo, CNN, 8 Dec. 2022
  • Based on the color of Jones’ rental cars, the Grinch was now a sickly green one, and soon would be a mean one, as Seuss took all his rhyming talents to the songs necessary to flesh out the original source material.
    — Patrick Sauer, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 Dec. 2020
  • The new Kohler Peachblow fixtures are warm and playful without being too sickly sweet—especially when paired with the brown, taupe, gray, and beige hues that are trending now for bathrooms.
    — Hollyanna McCollom, Better Homes & Gardens, 2 Feb. 2023
  • Even just a couple dashes of bitters can be the difference between something sickly sweet and a drink that’s perfectly balanced.
    — Eric Betz, Discover Magazine, 7 Oct. 2020
  • The cliche is that cider is sickly sweet and with a high alcohol level — but Scion’s selection includes draft ciders that range from 4 to 12% ABV, and the flavor profiles range from extremely dry and tannic to tart to herbal to sweet.
    — Stefene Russell, The Salt Lake Tribune, 2 Jan. 2023
  • The pastel indie-pop serenade is imbued with Night’s sickly sweet romantic lyrics.
    — Grace Ann Natanawan, SPIN, 4 Mar. 2022
  • Without missing a beat, Trump adjourned from that announcement to stage a sickly exploitative bible-brandishing photo-op in front of a Washington, DC, church damaged in the protests.
    — Linda Tirado, The New Republic, 4 June 2020
  • Playful, almost sickly, hues of baby blue, bubblegum pink, and banana yellow tie things up in a funny little millennial bow.
    — Camille Okhio, ELLE Decor, 30 Nov. 2022
  • Still sickly five days after testing positive, Trevino says she was pressured to return to work without a negative test result.
    — NBC News, 10 Feb. 2022
  • Even here, in the country’s second-oldest national park, the horizon is the sickly yellow of a cigarette butt, a vaporous mixture of Central Valley smog and forest fire smoke from the myriad infernos burning across the state.
    — Thayer Walker, Scientific American, 29 Dec. 2016
  • Parents, pastors, and other moral leaders were sickly invested in feminist misery.
    — Audrey Clare Farley, The New Republic, 4 May 2023
  • In Platt’s highly physical interpretation, he is scrunched and sickly looking, as if literally oppressed by the gentile society around him.
    — Jesse Green, New York Times, 16 Mar. 2023
  • Typically, these bottles are sickly sweet and hangover inducing.
    — Kate Dingwall, Forbes, 31 July 2022
  • Unfortunately, the film hinders its star, Paul Bettany, by keeping him sickly and homebound, mired in melodramatic worry over the religious implications of his great notion: evolution.
    — Andrew Moseman, Discover Magazine, 28 Dec. 2010
  • Always sickly and often overworked, her father died while processing his family’s final immigration paperwork.
    — Susan Dunne, courant.com, 12 Dec. 2021
  • Much of the new landscape looked rather sickly then and now.
    — oregonlive, 26 Jan. 2023
  • Did the sickly-sweet chocolates at the end come from Russell Stover?
    — Dallas News, 14 Apr. 2022
  • And maybe the spice that keeps it from becoming too sickly sweet.
    — Matt Brennan, Los Angeles Times, 22 Dec. 2021
  • At the same time that greasy stain is climbing up the side of the Peep, that sickly Peep flavor is seeping out across the pizza.
    — al, 4 Apr. 2021
  • Still, Shopsin resists the urge to veer sickly-sweet in her nostalgia.
    — Wired Staff, Wired, 26 Nov. 2021
  • The plants get seven hours of sunlight, but the leaves are really sickly looking.
    — Neil Sperry, San Antonio Express-News, 10 Sep. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'sickly.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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