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The following quotation is from “A study in scarlet” by Arthur Conan Doyle:
That book made me positively ill.
I know the meaning of both positively and ill, but when consolidating (combining) them I can’t figure out the meaning of the expression positively ill. I can’t even realize how can be associated two opposite (in meaning) words, but I guess is one of the particularities that English can offer.
There's no contradiction. In this sentence, positively doesn't have its literal meaning of "in a positive manner". Instead, it's used as an intensifier, emphasizing the following adjective ill.
When an English word is used as an intensifier, it loses its literal meaning. Originally, very meant "truly" (like verity, verify, verily, and so on), but now we can say very tasty ("tasty to a great degree"). Likewise, really meant "in reality", but now we can say really sick ("sick to a great degree").
A lot of similar words belong to this class, including awfully, absolutely, terribly, or the slang words super, way, totally, and literally.
"Positively" in this case serves as an intensifier. "Positive" has a root in the verb "posit", which means "to put forward as fact or as a basis for argument". Outside of mathematical contexts, "positive" is understood to mean that something is acceptable as truth (pending counter-proof).
As such, a medical test can be "positive" in that it presents evidence to believe that the person is sick, pending the results of other tests to corroborate or counter the statement.
In this case however, "positively ill" can mean that the speaker felt ill in some way, and while actual medical tests may prove him to be wrong, he feels that the things he felt were discomforting enough to warrant it being "illness".
"Positive" can also be used in the sense of "positive evidence" versus "negative evidence". "Negative evidence" is the result of tests that rule other things out. "Positive evidence" is actual evidence of something.
So "positively ill" can mean "obviously ill", as opposed to "not feeling great", "not feeling bored", "not merely feeling miserable", et cetera.
Some possible "positive evidence" of being ill might be:
So "That book made me positively ill" might mean "That book (literally) gave me a headache", or "That book made me want to puke".
It means "very, very ill". This is an example of an oxymoron, two words with opposite meanings or implications, used to exaggerate the meaning of the noun.
