''vicarious'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''vicarious'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260727004347-00-⌔

vicarious - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

vicarious (not comparable)

• Delegated.
• Experienced or gained by taking in another person’s experience rather than through first-hand experience, such as through watching or reading.
  • ✤ People experience vicarious pleasures through watching television.
  • ✤ The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous. When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity.¹
  • ✤ These are people getting some sort of vicarious thrill from the street violence people like Tommy Robinson promote. Those that are attacking Jess Philips, who I’m proud to call colleague and a friend, are not protecting victims.²
• On behalf of others.
  • ✤ The concept of vicarious atonement, that one person can atone for the sins of another, is found in many religions.
  • ✤ As time went on, the cruel custom was so far mitigated that a ram was accepted as a vicarious sacrifice in room of the royal victim.³
  • ✤ In these, however, he had not much time to indulge, for a footman, still decked in the trappings of vicarious grief, opened the door with the most startling promptitude, and he was ushered upstairs into a small but richly furnished room.⁴

Etymology

From Latin vicārius (“vicarious, substituted”) + English -ous. First attested in the 17th century.⁵ Doublet of vicar.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA: /vɪˈkɛəɹi.əs/, /vaɪˈkɛəɹi.əs/
• (Mary–marry–merry merger) IPA: /vaɪˈkɛɹi.əs/, /vəˈkɛɹi.əs/
• Audio (US): 🔊
• Audio (Australian): 🔊
• Rhymes: -ɛəɹi.əs

Printed 2026-07-27.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 10, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: ↩

2. 2025 January 6, Keir Starmer, 33:21 from the start, in Prime Minister’s remarks on the NHS ‎${}^{[1]}$, South West London Elective Orthopaedic Centre, Epsom: ↩

3. 1900, James Frazer, chapter 26, in The Golden Bough: ↩

4. 1920, H. Rider Haggard, chapter III, in The Blue Curtains: ↩

5. “vicarious, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. ↩

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