Word.ws English Dictionary

ailing

/ˈeɪ.lɪŋ/

ailing noun: an ailment. Also the present participle and gerund of ail.

Noun

ailing (plural ailings)

  1. An ailment.
    • When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose. And the queerer the cure for those ailings the bigger the attraction. A place like the Right Livers' Rest was bound to draw freaks, same as molasses draws flies.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

Adjective

ailing (comparative more ailing, superlative most ailing)

  1. Sickly; sick; ill; unwell.
    • She cared for her ailing brother day in, day out.
    • Based on the successful Class 59 but with a much more modern engine, what was to become the Class 66 was designed to replace much of the company's elderly and ailing locomotive fleet.2021 February 24, “Fleet News: Class 66 history”, in RAIL, number 925, page 27

Also used as

ailing is also the present participle and gerund of ail.

ailing meaning in Indonesian

ailing in Indonesian

sick
celomes, gering, merana

Examples of ailing in a sentence

  • With two children and an ailing mother, she had three dependents in all.
  • I assisted the ailing vicar in the exercise of his parish duties.
  • I cared for my ailing mother for five years.

All 12 example sentences with ailing

Forms of ailing

Noun
pluralailings
Adjective
comparativemore ailing
superlativemost ailing

Words formed from ailing

Words that rhyme with ailing

9 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about ailing

What does ailing mean?
Ailing means an ailment.
What is ailing in Indonesian?
Ailing in Indonesian is celomes, gering, merana. See Ailing meaning in Indonesian.
What part of speech is ailing?
Ailing can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce ailing?
Ailing is pronounced /ˈeɪ.lɪŋ/.
What is the plural of ailing?
The plural of ailing is ailings.

Words near ailing in the dictionary

  1. ailevator
  2. ailevators
  3. Ailie
  4. ailihphilia
  5. ailin'
  6. ailing
  7. ailings
  8. Ailish
  9. aillt
  10. aillts
  11. Ailly-sur-Noye

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ailing (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-ailing.wav.

Cite this entry: “ailing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ailing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.