Webster's English Dictionary

Enter the word to look up:

vicious

vi.cious \'vish-*s\ aj 1: having the nature or quality or vice or 
   immorality : DEPRAVED  2: DEFECTIVE, FAULTY; also : INVALID  3: IMPURE, 
   NOXIOUS  4: dangerously aggressive : SAVAGE  5: MALICIOUS, SPITEFUL  6: 
   worsened by internal causes that reciprocally augment each other {@ 
   wage-price spiral}M, INFAMOUS, CORRUPT, DEGENERATE: VICIOUS may directly 
   oppose, virtuous in implying moral depravity, or may connote malignancy, 
   cruelty, or destructive violence; VILLAINOUS applies to any evil, depraved, 
   or vile conduct or characteristic; INIQUITOUS implies absence of all signs 
   of justice or fairness; NEFARIOUS suggests flagrant breaching of 
   time-honored laws and traditions of conduct; FLAGITIOUS and INFAMOUS 
   suggest shameful and scandalous wickedness; CORRUPT stresses a loss of 
   moral integrity or probity causing betrayal of principle or sworn 
   obligations; DEGENERATE suggests having sunk to an esp. vicious or 
   enervated condition - vi.cious.ly av SYN syn VILLAINOUS, INIQUITOUS, 
   NEFARIOUS, FLAGITIOUS