Things that sicken you make you feel upset or ill. It might sicken you to realize that you've hit a squirrel with your car.

When things sicken you, they either make you feel terrible — disgusted or horrified — or they make you physically sick. Eating a piece of moldy bread or some potato salad that's been sitting in the sun too long will probably sicken you. Reading a story about childhood hunger and poverty in the newspaper can also sicken you. The earliest meaning of sicken was "fall ill," from an Old English root, seoc, "ill, diseased, weak, or troubled."

Definitions of sicken
  1. verb
    make sick or ill
    “This kind of food sickens me”
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    choke, gag
    cause to retch or choke
    type of:
    cause or do harm to
  2. verb
    upset and make nauseated
    “The mold on the food sickened the diners”
    synonyms: nauseate, turn one's stomach
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    type of:
    disgust, gross out, repel, revolt
    fill with distaste
  3. verb
    get sick
    synonyms: come down
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    become pale and sickly
    contract, get, take
    be stricken by an illness, fall victim to an illness
    become infected with a canker
    type of:
    decline, worsen
    grow worse
  4. verb
    cause aversion in; offend the moral sense of
    “The pornographic pictures sickened us”
    synonyms: churn up, disgust, nauseate, revolt
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    appal, appall, offend, outrage, scandalise, scandalize, shock
    strike with disgust or revulsion
    type of:
    repel, repulse
    be repellent to; cause aversion in
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