VICIOUS • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Vicious

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/vˈɪʃəs/ Listen

adjective

Vicious adj.

Characterized by vice or defects; defective; faulty; imperfect. "Though I perchance am vicious in my guess." "The title of these lords was vicious in its origin." "A charge against Bentley of vicious reasoning."

Addicted to vice; corrupt in principles or conduct; depraved; wicked; as, vicious children; vicious examples; vicious conduct. "Who... heard this heavy curse, Servant of servants, on his vicious race."

Wanting purity; foul; bad; noxious; as, vicious air, water, etc.

Not correct or pure; corrupt; as, vicious language; vicious idioms.

Not well tamed or broken; given to bad tricks; unruly; refractory; as, a vicious horse.

Bitter; spiteful; malignant. (Colloq.)

Synonyms: Corrupt; faulty; wicked; depraved.

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Etymology of 'Vicious'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Vicious" Quotes from Famous Books

... Philip had heard definitely stated was that the unbeliever was a wicked and a vicious man; but Weeks, though he believed in hardly anything that Philip believed, led a life of Christian purity. Philip had received little kindness in his life, and he was touched by the American's desire to help him: once when a cold kept him in bed ...

— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... perceive that he was what Mary Quince used to call 'dreadful particular'—I suppose a little selfish and impatient. He used to get cases of turtle from Liverpool. He drank claret and hock for his health, and ate woodcock and other light and salutary dainties for the same reason; and was petulant and vicious about the cooking of these, and the flavour and ...

— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... large ears Sir Pertinax did take him, And to and fro, and up and down, did shake him; He shook him quick and slow, from side to side, While loud for aid the shaken landlord cried. Whereat the vicious crowd, in sudden wrath, Shouted and cursed and plucked their daggers forth. But, ere to harm our bold Knight they were able, Duke Joc'lyn lightly sprang on massy table; Cock's-comb a-flaunt and silver ...

— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... refined and elegant manners, love of literature, and domestic happiness were less congenial to this erratic genius than the revels of his pot-companions. Brower soon became weary of his situation, and returned to his vicious habits, to which he soon fell a victim in 1640, at the early age of 32 years. He died in the public hospital at Antwerp, and was buried in an obscure manner; but when Rubens knew it, he had the body reinterred, ...

— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... dinner-hour, to banquet upon a small joint of mutton—a pound and a half of the worst end of the neck—when Charlotte being called out of the way, there ensued a brief interval of time, which Noah Claypole, being hungry and vicious, considered he could not possibly devote to a worthier purpose than aggravating and tantalising young ...

— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

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