Vicious means cruelly violent and meaning to hurt. A vicious attack, a vicious dog, vicious rumours.
It describes both physical violence and words: a vicious remark is meant to wound. The vicious circle, or vicious cycle, is a very common phrase for a situation where each problem worsens the next — the opposite is a virtuous circle. Note that vicious comes from vice and originally meant simply full of faults, and that viscous, meaning thick and slow-flowing, is a completely different word.
1adjectiveviciousCruelly violent, meaning to hurt.
“It was a vicious attack and entirely unprovoked.”
synonyms: savage, brutal, ferocious
2adjectivespitefulSpiteful in what is said.
“The rumours were vicious and mostly invented.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
vicious is a quality of cruelty.
Also accepted in games: savage, brutal
Latin vitiosus means full of faults, from vitium, a defect — the same root as vice and vitiate. English hardened a word about moral flaws into one about physical cruelty, which is a fairly steep drop.
Proto-Indo-European
*dwóh₁
Latin
vitiōsus
Anglo-Norman
vicious
Middle English
vicious
English, today
vicious
Built from
From Middle English vicious, from Anglo-Norman vicious, (modern French vicieux), from Latin vitiōsus, from vitium (“fault, vice”). Equivalent to vice + -ous.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA