vicious

Alternative forms

• vitious (obsolete)

Etymology

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman vicious, Old French vicious (modern French vicieux), from Latin vitiōsus, from vitium (“fault, vice”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈvɪʃəs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪʃəs

Adjective

vicious (comparative viciouser or more vicious, superlative viciousest or most vicious)

1. Violent, destructive and cruel.
2. 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.

3. (archaic) Pertaining to vice; characterised by immorality or depravity.
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, The 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.

Adjective

vicious m (oblique and nominative feminine singular viciouse)

1. vicious; malicious
2. defective; not capable of functioning

References

• vicios on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub