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Glite Dictionary
💥 Cruel or violent 😈 Morally bad 🔥 Impressive or cool
vicious

vicious

16 8.3
Informal way to say very impressive and stylish
  • adjective
  • /ˈvɪʃəs/
  • Slang
translation icon : genial
  • The kitchen is all sharp angles and vicious primary colors.

I wore that with my Browns Jojer vicious jersey.

Examples

  • Maybe it's not vicious at all.

    Harry and the Hendersons (1987)

  • I gave my Rolodex a vicious spin, watching the high-speed version of my social world twirl around on the desk.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • All that "You gotta be vicious" stuff you filled her head with.

    Godzilla (1998)

  • All that "you got to be vicious" stuff you filled her head with.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • I'm a vicious jungle animal from the streets of London!

    The Wild (2006)

  • It was so much and so interesting and so vicious and so beautiful in so many ways.

  • "That's some pretty vicious stuff you've got there."

    Fiction book (1994)

  • The new skateboard tricks you learned are really vicious!

  • That band's latest album is absolutely vicious with its electrifying beats and lyrics.

  • He pulled off a vicious performance at the concert that left everyone cheering.

Synonyms

ferocious
vsvicious
64 5.5

Very strong and violent in a way that hurts or scares

is an informal praise meaning energetic and stylish rather than violent or aggressive

Antonyms

ordinary
683 1.0

Normal and not special or unusual

unimpressive
9 3.9

Not very good or likely to attract attention

Compounds

vicious cycle
14 4.8

A situation where one problem causes another and makes things worse

vicious circle
5 3.9

A situation where one problem causes another and makes the first problem worse

How Impressive

vicious
  • Slang
16 8.3
awesome
968 2.1
excellent
∞ 1.0
great
∞ 1.0
good
∞ 1.0
ordinary
683 1.0

Surface Forms

vicious positive

Morphology

vicious = vice (opaque) = vice + ous

The slang/ironic sense 'excellent, impressive' diverges from the original negative meaning and cannot be derived from 'vice' by standard rules.

Etymology

Vicious keeps the idea of strong, sharp energy, and in slang people use it as a praise for something powerful or exciting. A helpful way to remember this is to think of a 'vicious' guitar solo as strong and impressively 'cool'.