Meaning
Looking pale, sickly and on the verge of vomiting; visibly nauseated. The gills are jokingly applied to the lower part of a person's face, by analogy with the gills of a fish, and green evokes the sickly complexion of someone seasick, hungover or otherwise unwell. Usually heard as look or turn green around the gills. Typical frames are look or turn green about/around the gills. The related colour pairings (blue, white, rosy about the gills) predate it. This green is the sickly-complexion branch, unrelated to green with envy. Regional use: British and American English; both about and around appear in 19th-century British and US sources.
Origin
Gill, the organ fish breathe with, is recorded in English from before 1325, and applying it to the human face is old slang humour - Word Histories glosses the gills of the phrase as the flesh under the jaws and ears, that is, the cheeks. Green as the colour of sickness is far older still: Etymonline notes green was used of the sick complexion from the mid-thirteenth century. The earliest known use of the phrase itself is a letter of 13 October 1843 in which Charles Dickens describes a bad cold as leaving him green in the gills - verified on the Word Histories survey - with green about the gills following in London's The Satirist of 25 February 1844 and green under the gills in the Poughkeepsie Eagle of 25 July 1857. Older cousins include blue and white about the gills, and Bacon used red about the gills for anger in 1626. Note the separation of families: this green belongs to the sickly-complexion branch of the word, not to green with envy, whose jealousy symbolism is a distinct development.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- green about the gills
- green in the gills
- green under the gills
Usage Examples
- One lap of the rollercoaster and Tom climbed off looking distinctly green around the gills.
- You are looking a bit green around the gills - shall I pull over?
- Half the crew turned green about the gills in the swell off the point.