be (as) sick as a dog

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be (as) sick as a dog

slang To be very ill. Honestly, I haven't been avoiding you—I've been sick as a dog. I had to go to the doctor on Monday because I was as sick as a dog all weekend.

sick as a dog, to be

To feel very ill, particularly to feel nauseated. Despite being touted as man’s best friend, dogs are often maligned. This proverbial simile dates from the sixteenth century or earlier and is still current. Occasionally it has appeared with sick meaning “tired of,” as by David Garrick (Neck or Nothing, 1766, 1:1): “I am sick as a dog of being a valet.”