vicarious
pronunciation
How to pronounce vicarious in British English:
UK [vɪˈkeəriəs]
How to pronounce vicarious in American English:
US [vaɪˈkeriəs]
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- Adjective:
- experienced at secondhand
- occurring in an abnormal part of the body instead of the usual site involved in that function
- suffered or done by one person as a substitute for another
Word Origin
- vicarious (adj.)
- 1630s, "taking the place of another," from Latin vicarius "that supplies a place; substituted, delegated," from vicis "a change, exchange, interchange; succession, alternation, substitution," from PIE root *weik- (4) "to bend, wind" (cognates: Sanskrit visti "changing, changeable;" Old English wician "to give way, yield," wice "wych elm;" Old Norse vikja "to bend, turn;" Swedish viker "willow twig, wand;" German wechsel "change"). From 1690s as "done or experienced in place of another" (usually in reference to punishment, often of Christ); from 1929 as "experienced imaginatively through another." Related: Vicariously.
Example
- 1. Vicarious learning and inferential accuracy in adoption processes .
- 2. They get a vicarious thrill from watching motor racing .
- 3. She is not content with her vicarious authority .
- 4. Some of this worry involves vicarious concerns .
- 5. And if his show allowed us any escape , it was the vicarious world , the bizarre new york city , in which those selfish acts were carried out without consequence .