vicious
See also: Vicious
Contents
EnglishEdit
Alternative formsEdit
- vitious (obsolete)
EtymologyEdit
Borrowed from Anglo-Norman vicious, Old French vicious (modern French vicieux), from Latin vitiōsus, from vitium (“fault, vice”).
PronunciationEdit
AdjectiveEdit
vicious (comparative viciouser or more vicious, superlative viciousest or most vicious)
- Violent, destructive and cruel.
- Savage and aggressive.
- 1922, Michael Arlen, “2/9/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days:
- He had always been remarkably immune from such little ailments, and had only once in his life been ill, of a vicious pneumonia long ago at school. He hadn't the faintest idea what to with a cold in the head, he just took quinine and continued to blow his nose.
- (archaic) Pertaining to vice; characterised by immorality or depravity.
- 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, printed at London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821:, Folio Society, 2006, vol.1, p.195:
- We may so seize on vertue, that if we embrace it with an over-greedy and violent desire, it may become vicious.
SynonymsEdit
Derived termsEdit
Related termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
violent, destructive
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pertaining to vice; characterised by immorality or depravity
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Old FrenchEdit
AdjectiveEdit
vicious m (oblique and nominative feminine singular viciouse)
- vicious; malicious
- defective; not capable of functioning
DeclensionEdit
Declension of vicious
ReferencesEdit
- vicios on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub