Word.ws English Dictionary

green at the gills

green at the gills is the alternative form of green about the gills.

Meaning of green about the gills

Adjective

green about the gills

  1. (idiomatic) Ill or unwell, especially as indicated by one's appearance.
    • "You're looking rather green about the gills, old chap."
      "I feel a little chippy to-day."
      "That's the worst of these cheap champagnes."1899, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 6, in A Duet
    Synonyms:
    diseased

Questions about green at the gills

What is green at the gills the alternative form of?
Green at the gills is the alternative form of green about the gills.

Words near green at the gills in the dictionary

  1. green artichokes
  2. green as a gooseberry
  3. green as grass
  4. green asbestos
  5. green ash
  6. green at the gills
  7. green audit
  8. green audits
  9. green bacteria
  10. green bacterium
  11. green bag

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: green at the gills (page history and authors); green about the gills (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.

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