Commonly confused words about Health with Sentences

Was it an Accident or an Indicent that you witnessed on your way to office? The quietness you experienced inside the fort was Deadly or Deathly? Confused? Don't worry. Many of us get confused with these and more such word pairs.

In this section, we get you 5 most commonly confused word-pairs along with their meanings and example sentences so that you can learn them and used them confidently.

1. Accident and Incident

Accident - Accidents are some bad events that cause some harm, injury or damage. They happen by chance and are always un-intentional.

For e.g. If a man drowns in the lake, it is an accident because this is a bad event and was unintentional.

Incident - Incident refers to any event or happening small or big, good or bad. It could be intentional or unintentional.

For e.g. A fight on the street could also be an incident and Tim falling from his chair while laughing at his friend’s joke could also be an incident.

All accidents can be incidents but the vice versa is not true.

2. Recover and Re-cover

Recover - It means to get well or heal.

So, when your jaundice starts getting better, you recover from jaundice or when your head injury starts healing up, you recover from the head injury.

Re-cover - When you cover something again or put on a new cover on it, you re-cover it.

For e.g. The old covers on school notebooks were torn. David and mommy sat together to re-cover them.

3. Deadly and Deathly

Deadly means something that has the ability to kill or cause death.  

For e.g. a deadly virus or a deadly accident, deadly volcano, deadly fish.  

During informal talks, the word is also used to refer to something that is very good or excellent. For e.g. The city is happening and its pubs are deadly.

Deathly on the other hand means having qualities of death or something suggestive of death.

For e.g. He is deathly allergic to shrimps.

He could be mildly allergic to shrimps. He could be severely allergic to shrimps …. or He could be deathly allergic to shrimps.

Or the deathly silence at home worried me.

4. Disease and Decease

Disease and Decease are not really close in anyway other than the fact that they are homophones.

Disease is a medical condition of a living being that hinders its physical functions. For e.g. Kidney disease, or skin disease or liver disease.

Decease means death or an event signifying end of life. This is a word which is synonymous with demise.

For e.g. He worked with full energy and vigour until his untimely decease in 2008.

Another example to understand the word could be, "The accident claimed 5 lives. The deceased were in their 20s and entered the turbulent waters even after repeated alerts from the villagers.

5. Sickness and Sickliness

Sickness - Being sick is a temporary feeling of not being well. So, when someone is sick, he is expected to get well soon.

For e.g. "Her sickness will not last long" or "The pregnancy induced nausea makes her feel sick in the morning".

Sickliness - Being sickly refers to being unwell often and suggests the person to be unhealthy.

For e.g. Her sickliness and absenteeism may cost her the job.