illthn.
/ɪlθ/ Used by and after Ruskin as the reverse of wealth in the sense of ‘well-being’: Ill-being.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > adversity > [noun] > lack of prosperity or thriving
illfarea1425
improsperity1528
improsperousness1647
ill-being1841
unprosperitya1843
illth1862
1862 J. Ruskin Unto this Last iv. 126 As mere accidental stays and impediments acting not as wealth, but (for we ought to have a correspondent term) as ‘illth’.
1886 O. Lodge Inaug. Addr. in Liverpool Univ. Coll. Mag. Mar. 136 A hundred sovereigns may be no wealth, but the direst illth, to the drowning wretch in whose pockets they serve only as a load to drag him to destruction.
1889 G. B. Shaw Fabian Ess. Socialism 22 (heading) ‘Illth’.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1899; most recently modified version published online March 2018).
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n.1862