How to Use sicken in a Sentence

sicken

verb
  • Many people sickened and died on the long voyage.
  • The bacteria in the drinking water sickened the whole village.
  • We were sickened by the reports of violence.
  • They are thought to have been sickened from Sept. 6 to Oct. 28.
    Bay Area News Group, The Mercury News, 18 Nov. 2024
  • Among the 14 states listed on the CDC’s map, Ohio has 11 sickened, the most of the outbreak.
    Susan Selasky, Detroit Free Press, 5 Jan. 2024
  • The helplessness of the young victims and the savagery of the attack sickened France.
    John Leicester, Anchorage Daily News, 8 June 2023
  • The prison guards brought her a milky porridge with a piece of oily fish that sickened her.
    J Wortham, New York Times, 2 May 2024
  • Of those sickened, 12 are from Ohio, according to the CDC.
    Sarah Brookbank, Cincinnati.com, 27 Nov. 2019
  • The outbreak has sickened people from as young as less than a year to 87 years old.
    Jonathan Lapook, CBS News, 15 June 2018
  • One way to reduce the number of birds at your feeders is to sicken them.
    Jim Williams, Star Tribune, 2 Feb. 2021
  • The lake stinks, and signs go up warning that the toxic sludge can sicken children and kill pets.
    Emma Marris, The Atlantic, 5 June 2021
  • The strain has also sickened 67 people and caused one death.
    Thomas G. Moukawsher, Newsweek, 6 Feb. 2025
  • So far, three farmworkers have been sickened in the U.S., one in Texas and two in Michigan.
    Mary Kekatos, ABC News, 5 June 2024
  • And in Hawaii, the virus caused a popular hiking spot to close after dozens of campers were sickened with the virus.
    Cara Lynn Shultz, People.com, 30 Dec. 2024
  • It was closed after an E. coli outbreak that claimed the life of a two-year-old boy and sickened 3 others.
    San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 June 2019
  • The Missouri patient was the 14th person in the U.S. sickened with bird flu since March, when the virus was detected in cows.
    Lindsey Leake, Fortune Well, 12 Sep. 2024
  • About 200 people were sickened in the E. coli outbreak and five people died.
    CBS News, 29 June 2018
  • Still, Rogge and other researchers couldn’t say for certain what in the mussels would sicken the dogs.
    Tim Prudente, baltimoresun.com, 11 July 2018
  • The outbreak has killed one person and sickened at least 75 others across 13 states.
    Samuel Burke, Fortune, 29 Oct. 2024
  • The cereal has been the subject of a recall since last month and has sickened 100 people.
    James Hohmann, Washington Post, 13 July 2018
  • In past outbreaks, about 39 percent of those sickened died.
    Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 28 Aug. 2018
  • The storylines are enthralling, the outfits are sickening, and the balls?
    Gabi Thorne, Allure, 20 Aug. 2019
  • An oil spill in 2018 caused a fire that killed five people and sickened hundreds in the port city of Balikpapan.
    Achmad Ibrahim, ajc, 3 Mar. 2023
  • And the new virus — which has killed more than 1,000 people and sickened tens of thousands — has emerged as an economic wild card.
    BostonGlobe.com, 11 Feb. 2020
  • Two farmworkers at dairies in Michigan and Texas were sickened by bird flu this spring.
    Josh Funk, Fortune, 25 May 2024
  • At that moment — and for many months after — the idea of wrestling again sickened the Elmhurst College graduate.
    Stacy St. Clair, Chicago Tribune, 5 May 2024
  • One study found neighbors were sickened after sludge applied to a farm field blew over their homes.
    Claire Wolters, National Geographic, 26 June 2019
  • Both children and adults were sickened by the bacteria.
    Ryan Faircloth, Twin Cities, 16 Aug. 2019
  • Last year, a salmonella outbreak in eggs sickened 93 people across 12 states.
    Jia H. Jung, The Mercury News, 25 Feb. 2025
  • As Texas continues to contend with a growing measles outbreak that has sickened 159 and killed one, other states are reporting cases of the highly contagious disease.
    Mary Walrath-Holdridge, USA TODAY, 4 Mar. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'sicken.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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