First Known Use: 1637
Dictionary
vicarious
adjective vi·car·i·ous \vī-ˈker-ē-əs, və-\
: experienced or felt by watching, hearing about, or reading about someone else rather than by doing something yourself
Full Definition of VICARIOUS
1
a : serving instead of someone or something else b : that has been delegated <vicarious authority>
2
: performed or suffered by one person as a substitute for another or to the benefit or advantage of another : substitutionary <a vicarious sacrifice>
3
: experienced or realized through imaginative or sympathetic participation in the experience of another <a vicarious thrill>
4
: occurring in an unexpected or abnormal part of the body instead of the usual one <vicarious menstruation manifested by bleeding from the nose>
— vi·car·i·ous·ly adverb
— vi·car·i·ous·ness noun
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See vicarious defined for kids
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Examples of VICARIOUS
- I am a vicarious eater, often preferring a description of a meal to eating it. I hoard the Wednesday food section of the New York Times, savoring it as my late-night reading, finishing always with the restaurant review. —Anne-Marie Slaughter, Commonweal, 14 June 2002
- Most people caged in the humdrum routines of modern life are eager for vicarious glimpses of pain, joy, and especially vitality. —Robert Jackall et al., Image Makers, 2000
- There is an immense sub-middle class with enough money to preserve it from rancorous envy of the rich, but not enough to preserve it from boredom; it needs vicarious compensations and manages to find them in the gossip columns. —Aldous Huxley, The Olive Tree, 1937
- To give himself the vicarious illusion of companionship, he fell back on letters. —Amy Lowell, John Keats, 1925
- By means of ferocious jokes … he could vent his hatred of pioneer life and all its conditions, those conditions that were thwarting his creative life; he could, in this vicarious manner, appease the artist in him … —Van Wyck Brooks, The Ordeal of Mark Twain, 1920
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Origin of VICARIOUS
Latin vicarius, from vicis change, alternation, stead — more at week
Rhymes with VICARIOUS
VICARIOUSLY Defined for Kids
vicarious
adjective vi·car·i·ous \vī-ˈker-ē-əs\
Definition of VICARIOUS for Kids
: sharing in someone else's experiences through the use of imagination or sympathetic feelings <She got vicarious enjoyment from her sister's travels.>
— vi·car·i·ous·ly adverb
— vi·car·i·ous·ness noun
Medical Dictionary
vicarious
adjective vi·car·i·ous \vī-ˈker-ē-əs, və-, -ˈkar-\
Medical Definition of VICARIOUS
: occurring in an unexpected or abnormal part of the body instead of the usual one <bleeding from the gums sometimes occurs in the absence of the normal discharge from the uterus in vicarious menstruation>
Learn More About VICARIOUS
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