Word Confusion: Nauseated versus Nauseous

Posted September 21, 2021 by Kathy Davie in Author Resources, Self-Editing, Word Confusions, Writing

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English is constantly evolving and nauseated and nauseous have come to mean the same thing. However, do remember that nauseated is a verb while nauseous is an adjective.

In formal writing, stick with the traditional definitions:

Nauseated is affected with nausea or feeling sick, i.e., you’re likely to be throwing up.
Nauseous is causing nausea, as in you describing feeling seasick or reacting to a chemo treatment, etc.

Word Confusions . . .

. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noir for you from either end.

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Nauseated	Nauseous
A Woman Holding Her Stomach and Vomiting into a Bucket, 12 March 1800, by I. Cruikshank is under the CC BY 4.0 license and was uploaded by Fæ courtesy of Wellcome Library no. 11913i, via Wikimedia Commons. — Yep, I think she’s nauseated.	Rotten Apple is Kulmalukko‘s own work under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons. — Just thinking of taking a bite is making me nauseous!
Part of Grammar:
Verb, intransitive & transitive Third person present verb: nauseates Past tense or past participle: nauseated Gerund or present participle: nauseating	Adjective
Verb, intransitive: To become affected with nausea Verb, transitive: Make (someone) feel sick Affect with nausea Fill (someone) with revulsion To cause to feel extreme disgust	Affected with nausea Inclined to vomit Causing nausea Offensive to the taste or smell Disgusting, repellent, or offensive
Examples:
Verb, intransitive: Now, as she looked at him, she felt the same way she had felt then, breathless, stunned, nauseated. “I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating.” – Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness Verb, transitive: The thought of food nauseated her. I was nauseated by the vicious comment. The overwhelming smell of boiled cabbage nauseated them. His vicious behavior toward the dogs nauseates me.	It was a rancid, cloying odor that made him nauseous. The smell was nauseous. Being a passenger in a car makes me nauseous. I can’t take this nauseous account of a court case. It was a nauseous display of greed.
Derivatives:
Adjective: nauseating Adverb: nauseatingly Noun: nauseation	Adverb: nauseously Noun: nauseousness
History of the Word:
Mid-17th century from the Latin nauseat- meaning made to feel sick, from the verb nauseare, from nausea.	Early 17th century from the Latin nauseosus, from nausea meaning seasickness.

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C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!

Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.

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