vicious
- 1
- 2Savage and aggressive, especially in temperament or manner of attack.
The cornered animal grew vicious, snapping at everyone who approached.
Rival supporters traded vicious shoves and threats outside the stadium.
Similarsavage, aggressive, ferocious, fierce, violent
Oppositegentle, tame, docile, friendly
Note
Savagery here can belong to more than animals and crowds. When Michael Arlen's "Piracy" (1922) gives a character "a vicious pneumonia," the illness itself is pictured as an attacker, fierce and hard to fend off. That stretch is natural for this sense, which describes how something assails you. By contrast, the cruel, destructive meaning implies an intent to harm, and a fever cannot have one.
- 3Given to vice; marked by immorality or moral depravity.
Moralists of the age condemned the vicious idleness of the young nobles.
A murrain on you, Reverend Apse/I hope you get caught in a vicious moral lapse.
1930, Ogden Nash, Lines to Be Mumbled at Ovington'sNote
The meaning the word was built for: vicious comes through Anglo-Norman from Latin vitiōsus, from vitium, "fault, vice," and is simply vice plus -ous. It is now archaic, and modern readers hear cruelty first. Ogden Nash could still use it in 1930 when wishing a clergyman some moral failing, playing on the old sense. In plain modern prose, depraved or immoral says this without being misread as violent.
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Origin
From Middle English vicious, borrowed via Anglo-Norman vicious (modern French vicieux) from Latin vitiōsus, itself from vitium ("fault, vice"). It is equivalent to vice + -ous.