Word.ws English Dictionary

illfare

illfare noun: misfortune; detriment; harm; evilfare.

Noun

illfare (uncountable)

  1. (archaic) Misfortune; detriment; harm; evilfare.
    • According to a principle of weak benevolence, all except the deviant will, other things being equal, prefer the welfare of others to their illfare; according to a principle of strong benevolence, preferring the welfare of others to their illfare will guide conduct even when other things are not...1994, Mortimer Raymond Kadish, The Ophelia paradox
    • The environment is an extremely important, although not the only, foundation for our welfare or illfare.2006, Lennart Nordenfelt, Animal and Human Health and Welfare

Examples of illfare in a sentence

  • The opposite of the condition of social welfare is social illfare.2009, James Midgley, Michelle Livermore, The Handbook of Social Policy:
  • Without the media, public concern over the illfare of Finnish children would not have been so widely discussed or examined.2011, Hannele Forsberg, Teppo Kröger, Social Work and Child Welfare Politics:

Antonyms of illfare

Origin of illfare

From ill- + fare. Compare evilfare, welfare, etc. First attested in c. 1300.

Questions about illfare

What does illfare mean?
Illfare means misfortune; detriment; harm; evilfare.
How do you use illfare in a sentence?
The opposite of the condition of social welfare is social illfare.
What part of speech is illfare?
Illfare is a noun.

Words near illfare in the dictionary

  1. illeists
  2. illeity
  3. iller
  4. illest
  5. illeviable
  6. illfare
  7. illfavoured
  8. illfitting
  9. illfluencer
  10. illfluencers
  11. Illia

Source and license

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