| Library / English Dictionary |
VICIOUS
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Marked by deep ill will; deliberately harmful
Example:
vicious gossip
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Similar:
malicious (having the nature of or resulting from malice)
Derivation:
viciousness (the trait of extreme cruelty)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering
Example:
vicious kicks
Synonyms:
barbarous; brutal; cruel; fell; roughshod; savage; vicious
Classified under:
Similar:
inhumane (lacking and reflecting lack of pity or compassion)
Derivation:
viciousness (the trait of extreme cruelty)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Bringing or deserving severe rebuke or censure
Example:
adultery is as reprehensible for a husband as for a wife
Synonyms:
condemnable; criminal; deplorable; reprehensible; vicious
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
wrong (contrary to conscience or morality or law)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Having the nature of vice
Synonyms:
evil; vicious
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
wicked (morally bad in principle or practice)
Derivation:
vice (a specific form of evildoing)
viciousness (the trait of extreme cruelty)
Context examples:
“Hoping that it will give thee no offence, most holy sir”—with a vicious snap at Alleyne—“and with the kind permit of the company, I will even venture upon it.”
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Don't trouble yourself to answer—I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am naturally vicious.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The research reveals how the hyperactive sugar consumption of cancerous cells leads to a vicious cycle of continued stimulation of cancer development and growth.
(Scientists Reveal The Relationship Between Sugar, Cancer, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
He had a large red face, with pendulous cheeks, and a general air of superficial benevolence which was marred by a cruel, vicious mouth.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
For a while the ship kept bucking and sidling like a vicious horse, the sails filling, now on one tack, now on another, and the boom swinging to and fro till the mast groaned aloud under the strain.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
The vicious propensities—the want of principle, which he was careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself, and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr. Darcy could not have.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Admiral Crawford was a man of vicious conduct, who chose, instead of retaining his niece, to bring his mistress under his own roof; and to this Mrs. Grant was indebted for her sister's proposal of coming to her, a measure quite as welcome on one side as it could be expedient on the other; for Mrs. Grant, having by this time run through the usual resources of ladies residing in the country without a family of children—having more than filled her favourite sitting-room with pretty furniture, and made a choice collection of plants and poultry—was very much in want of some variety at home.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
He was a man of good family and of great ability, but of incurably vicious habits, who had by an ingenious system of fraud obtained huge sums of money from the leading London merchants.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
One or two little houses, with the notice, Lodgings for Travellers, hanging out, had tempted me; but I was afraid of spending the few pence I had, and was even more afraid of the vicious looks of the trampers I had met or overtaken.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
With their going it seemed as if some evil presence had departed, for the dogs frisked about and barked merrily as they made sudden darts at their prostrate foes, and turned them over and over and tossed them in the air with vicious shakes.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
