to take ill
9
5.6
- phrasal verb
:
enfermarse
- Sir, Collins has taken ill, sir.
Examples
-
'I regret to announce that Mr Julian Craster the composer, 'who was to conduct his own opera, has been suddenly taken ill.
-
My mistress was taken ill.
Fiction book (1995) -
I fear I am taken ill.
-
- This man has been taken ill.
-
Apparently, he was taken ill.
-
But seriously the director has been taken ill.
-
- He was taken ill this morning.
-
Her own maid had also been taken ill, so Marie was treated by a hired nurse.
Academic text (2010) -
A few days later, Nitobe took ill and died.
Academic text (1995) -
I was shocked when I found out that my grandmother had taken ill unexpectedly.
Synonyms
378
1.0
Become ill and have signs like fever or cough
5
3.0
Begin to feel ill
3
1.8
To be sick or slightly ill
Suddenly feeling ill or drunk without warning
Antonyms
How Sick
9
5.6
3
1.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is compositionally predictable: 'take' can mean 'contract' or 'be affected by' and combined with 'ill' yields 'contract/become unwell.' A B1 learner who knows both constituents would likely infer this meaning, despite the phrase being somewhat formal or less frequent in casual speech.
Etymology
Take ill comes from a simple image of sickness suddenly coming on someone; the verb take here means 'get' or 'become' and ill means sickness, so the phrase means 'to become sick'.