a. Also 5 north. vnwele; Sc. 7 unweal, 9 un-, onweel. [UN-1 7. Cf. NFris. (Sylt) unwel, WFlem. onwel, G. unwohl.] Not well or in good health; somewhat ill; indisposed.
Before 1780 almost always north. E., Sc., Anglo-Irish, or U.S. Not in Johnson (edd. 1–4). In very frequent use from c. 1785 ‘Crabbe … told us that Lord Chesterfield was the first person who introduced the word ‘unwell’ into common use, and … it was forthwith admitted into the vocabulary of fashion’ (1825 C. Wordsw., in Overton & W., Life (1888), 36).
c. 1450. St. Cuthbert (Surtees), 3649. A man was seke and vnwele.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, I. vi. 30. Gargamelle began to be a little unwell in her lower parts.
1666. Mrs. Carstaires, in J. Carstaire’s Lett. (1846), 161. My sister still contanues unwell. The doctour thinks she is in great hazard.
a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, 10 Oct., 1659. I … tooke lodgings … for all the winter, my son being very unwell.
1737. Berkeley, Lett., Wks. 1871, IV. 248. My three children have been ill … George is still unwell.
1750. C. Gist, Jrnls. (1893), 34. I was unwell and stayed in this Town to recover myself.
1755. Chesterf., Lett., 8 Oct. I am what you call in Ireland, and a very good expression I think it is, unwell.
1757. Mrs. Griffith, Lett. Henry & Frances (1767), I. 218. I hope that it is only your spleen, which makes you fancy yourself unwell.
1768. Chesterf., Lett., 17 Oct. I am, neither well nor ill, but unwell.
1788. Anna Seward, Lett. (1811), II. 117. I have been so unwell with a violent cough.
1826. Scott, Jrnl. (1890), I. 231. I am well-nigh choked with the sulphurous heat of the weather—or I am unwell.
1856. J. Richardson, Recoll., I. 61. Morris … suddenly retired as if taken unwell!
1882. Tennyson, Promise of May, III. i. Mr. Steer still continues too unwell to attend to you.
b. euphem. Having menstrual discharges.
1844. Dunglison, Med. Dict. (ed. 4), s.v.
Hence Unwellness.
1653. Dorothy Osborne, Lett. (1888), 140. You … never send me any of the new phrases of the town…. Pray what is meant by wellness and unwellness?
1755. Chesterf., Lett., 8 Oct. This unwellness affects the mind as well as the body, and gives them both a disagreeable inertness.
1865. W. M. Punshon, in Macdonald, Life (1887), 250. This chronic ‘unwellness’ is difficult to understand.
1876. Darwin, in Life (1887), I. 69. Owing to frequently recurring unwellness, and to one long and serious illness.
