Etymologically
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unhealthy

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Pronunciation

  • /ʌnˈhɛl.θi/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English un- + healthy.[2][3][4][5] It was preceded by unhealthsome (1540s) and unhealthful (1570s),[5] and Middle English had the noun unhealth, from Old English unhælþ.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Harmful to health: Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1595, and Etymonline to the 1590s.[4][5] The OED's first quotation, from 1600 in Hakluyt's Principal Navigations, describes places and climates that were bad for health.[2]

Semantic evolution

From 1611, in Cotgrave's dictionary, the word was used of people, "sickly, not in good health",[2][5] the sense Johnson (1755) gave as "sickly; wanting health".[6] Figurative use followed in 1821, in Charles Lamb,[2] and a medical sense, diseased or morbid, in 1862.[2] In the First World War soldiers called a place under heavy fire unhealthy, meaning dangerous,[2][7][5] and Collins keeps the informal sense "risky".[8]

Timeline

  • 1595 – harmful to health (Merriam-Webster; the OED has 1600).[4][2]
  • 1611 – of people, sickly.[2]
  • 1821 – figurative.[2]
  • 1862 – in pathology, diseased.[2]
  • 1915 – military slang, dangerous.[2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Not in good health; sickly: an unhealthy calf.
  2. Harmful to health: He gave up his unhealthy diet of fried food.
  3. Showing or resulting from ill health: a pale, unhealthy look.
  4. Morbid or unwholesome: an unhealthy interest in crime.
  5. (informal) Dangerous or risky.

Word family

  • unhealthily
  • unhealthiness

Usage notes

Etymonline quotes Eliza Leslie's Behaviour Book (1839), which held that food should be called wholesome or unwholesome, not healthy or unhealthy: a pig may be healthy while alive, but pork can have no health.[5]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  7. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins