vicious

• vitious (obsolete)

From Middle English vicious, from Anglo-Norman vicious, (modern French vicieux), from Latin vitiōsus, from vitium (“fault, vice”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈvɪʃəs/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɪʃəs

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: By Val[entine] Simmes for 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.

• scathy

• vicious circle

• vice
• vitiate

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman vicious, from Latin vitiōsus; equivalent to vice +‎ -ous.

• viciows, vicius, vycious, vycyus, vicyous, vecyous, vysyous, vycios, vycyous, vicyows

• IPA^(key): /visiˈuːs/, /visˈjuːs/, /ˈvisjus/

vicious (inflected form viciouse)

1. Iniquitous, sinful, wicked (often in a way that causes harm or vice to/in others)
2. (rare) Lacking purity or cleanness; spoiled or defiled.
3. (rare) Inaccurate, modified, or debased; of substandard quality.
4. (rare) Injurious, dangerous; causing serious harm.

• English: vicious
• Scots: veecious

• “viciǒus (adj.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-03-01.

vicious m (oblique and nominative feminine singular viciouse)

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

• vicios on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub