adjective

• 1Deliberately cruel or violent.

  ‘a vicious assault’

  More example sentences

  • ‘This was a cowardly, savage and vicious attack on a man who was utterly helpless.’
  • ‘It was a brutal, vicious and pitiless attack in which you showed your victim no mercy.’
  • ‘The tabloids violated my family's privacy in a manner that I felt was vicious and indecent.’
  • ‘True, the film gets off on its own sense of creative cruelty, but it is nowhere near as vile or vicious as it thinks it is.’
  • ‘Rather, they are aggressively recruiting new criminals to their vicious gang.’
  • ‘Are we wasting sympathy on vicious criminals when we insist on proper legal safeguards for them?’
  • ‘Our most vicious tendencies are based around and triggered by hormonal impulses.’
  • ‘Local radio news bulletins are jammed with reports of muggings and vicious petty criminals.’
  • ‘He is a more serious and vicious monster these days.’
  • ‘There is a serious agenda behind this vicious journalism.’
  • ‘People could look harmless and gorgeous on the outside when really they are vicious vile evil monsters on the inside.’
  • ‘While embarrassing moments are unavoidable and nothing to be ashamed about, dishonest, vicious or sleazy behavior is well within your control.’
  • ‘As I got older, I decided it might kill him to know that his only son was a vicious, nasty bully.’
  • ‘The aristocratic families at the heart of the new scandals are not loyal and dutiful - they are vicious, greedy and spiteful.’
  • ‘Don't tolerate the equally vicious dishonesty of adultery.’
  • ‘They are vicious, horrible, and those responsible should be severely punished.’

  Synonyms

  brutal, ferocious, savage, violent, dangerous, ruthless, remorseless, merciless, heartless, callous, cruel, harsh, cold-blooded, inhuman, fierce, barbarous, barbaric, brutish, bestial, bloodthirsty, bloody, fiendish, sadistic, monstrous, villainous, murderous, homicidal, heinous, atrocious, diabolical, terrible, dreadful, awful, grim

  malicious, malevolent, malignant, malign, spiteful, vindictive, venomous, poisonous, baleful, virulent, pernicious, backbiting, rancorous, caustic, mean, cruel, bitter, acrimonious, hostile, hate-filled, menacing, nasty, unpleasant, evil

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  1. 1.1(of an animal) wild and dangerous to people.
     ‘the dog was vicious and likely to bite’
     More example sentences

     • ‘It seems I am now safely in my home, far from the menacing arms of the vicious beast which drove me from the wild!’
     • ‘Bloodstained snow, heavy cloaks, blackened eyes, Indian rites, puritanical fire and brimstone and the ominous howl of vicious wolf beasts.’
     • ‘I would like to warn cat owners about a vicious dog in the Long Ditton area.’
     • ‘Although it looks a vicious creature, the wolf eel is in fact very timid, its main diet being the spiny sea urchin, the sharp spines of which have no effect on the wolf eel's tough jaws.’
     • ‘He lifted it off, gingerly, like he was removing a possibly vicious pet rodent from his superior's suit; something not really his, but which somehow he was responsible for.’
     • ‘A great altar of bone and steel rested at the end, crouching like some vicious creature waiting for prey.’
     • ‘Snow wolves were vicious, bloodthirsty wolves that roamed the forest.’
     • ‘The Jungle Book follows Mowgli's adventures as he flees a vicious tiger with the help of Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther.’
     • ‘When this scene is shown on film the viewer is expected to take the side of the innocent turtle hatchling against the vicious crab or bird.’
     • ‘And these two people, two lawyers, had very, very vicious dogs.’
     • ‘Lady Hester evidently came from Somerset, where she acquired a formidable reputation for breaking in the most vicious horses.’
     • ‘Animal Control Officers must deal with vicious and wild animals.’
     • ‘Before achieving this difficult task, he has to fight rebels in the forest, as well as Walken's private army, not to mention vicious monkeys with teeth like the American werewolf in London.’
     • ‘Maybe it's that chihuahua next door which she mocks from the window: in her REM sleep visions, it's a vicious bull, ring through its nose.’
     • ‘The female of the species is the most vicious creature known to exist.’
     • ‘At last they were ready to disembark and to leave this hellhole of a place swarming with the vicious creatures of the night.’
     • ‘James held his sword in front of him in fear, and quickly stumbled backwards away from the vicious creature.’
     • ‘Then let him undistractedly restrain his mind, as a charioteer restrains his vicious horses.’
     Synonyms

     ferocious, savage, vicious

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  2. 1.2Serious or dangerous.
     ‘a vicious flu bug’
     More example sentences

     • ‘The race officer used great imagination, setting several angles across the lake, but conditions were difficult with vicious squalls and considerable wind shifts.’
     • ‘A person can be successfully evil only if he or she can embody a peculiarly nasty blend of vicious evil and laudable good.’
     • ‘As aggressive as enemy soldiers in the ‘Great War’, the flu proved a vicious killer.’
     • ‘It was enough to bring on an onslaught of particularly vicious flu for anyone.’
     • ‘I have to tell you, if you tried to email me, I've got some seriously vicious spam software that might have kept you from getting through at all.’
     • ‘I personally look forward to future lawsuits from Somalian, Japanese, and Mexican governments for the vicious inaccuracies of these horrible movies.’
     • ‘This will be an ugly, vicious war with high casualties on both sides and lots of dead civilians.’
     • ‘I didn't care whether it was ballet or flying a plane or driving a train; anything would break that vicious horrible cycle.’
     • ‘I had that in Scotland over Christmas, along with the rest of the island, and it was indeed vicious and nasty and not an experience I would wish to repeat.’
     • ‘Prone to sudden vicious weather and arctic conditions, Mt. McKinley is a serious mountaineering undertaking even on its easier routes.’
     • ‘The smell was revolting, a vicious and evil stench… the stench of death, she crawled forward on her hands and knees and reached for the wall of the cell.’
     • ‘The seductive illusion of virtuous circle was transposed to the ugly reality of vicious financial death spiral.’
     • ‘On the Raiders side, you get to see one of the most vicious, ugliest defenses known to man and NFL Films.’
     • ‘It can be, at times, a nasty and vicious fight to make it all the way to the top of the mountain.’
     • ‘According to the Killarney based TD, vicious cutbacks are now being imposed in the school building programme.’
     • ‘Yet the spectre of drugs returned with vicious abandon culminating in his being imprisoned in 1991 and serving 5 years.’
     • ‘The fact ate at her like a vicious, degenerative disease that just wouldn't go away.’
     • ‘Suddenly they moved over a vicious looking chain fence and the base at White Sands, New Mexico was under them.’
     • ‘Clarence threw a vicious rabbit punch into Jack's kidney, and broke the contact to aim a cut at Jack's head.’

• 2literary Immoral.

  ‘every soul on earth, virtuous or vicious, shall perish’

  More example sentences

  • ‘What had made me smile was his vicious and vile bigotry.’
  • ‘As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.’
  • ‘Satan, who represents Evil, the utterly vicious, is yet not a monster because he also fits absolutely into a certain moral universe, a certain symbolic order.’

  Synonyms

  immoral, debauched, dissolute, abandoned, perverted, degenerate, profligate, degraded, wicked, sinful, vile, base, iniquitous, corrupt, corrupted, criminal, vicious, brutal, lewd, licentious, lascivious, lecherous, prurient, obscene, indecent, libertine

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• 3archaic (of language or a line of reasoning) imperfect; defective.