Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use vicarious in a sentence

10 example sentences · adjective

Vicarious means delegated. Example: “People experience vicarious pleasures through watching television.”

Examples of vicarious by meaning

adjectiveExperienced or gained by taking in another person’s experience rather than through first-hand experience, such as...

  • People experience vicarious pleasures through watching television.
  • These are people getting some sort of vicarious thrill from the street violence people like Tommy Robinson promote.2025 January 6, Keir Starmer, 33:21 from the start, in Prime Minister's remarks on the NHS, South West London Elective Orthopaedic Centre...

adjectiveOn 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.1900, James Frazer, chapter 26, in The Golden Bough

More sentences with vicarious

  • As we have seen, the rationalia of vicarious liability are slippery.2000, Peter Birks, English Private Law, volume II, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 521. From the entry rationalia
  • Lurkers hang around silently in otherwise noisy chat rooms, eavesreading other people's conversations for vicarious fun.1998, Larry Samuel, The Future Ain't what it Used to be: 40 Cultural Trends Transforming Your Job, Your Life, Your World, Riverhead Books…. From the entry eavesread
  • It is noted that vicarious embarrassment does not necessarily indicate the presence of an embarrassed other.1996, Rom Harré, W. Gerrod Parrott, editors, The Emotions: Social, Cultural and Biological Dimensions, SAGE, →ISBN, page 124. From the entry vicarious embarrassment
  • Serendipity adventurizes and romanticizes objects of desire, endowing the experience of their acquisition with a vicarious thrill.1962, Puzant Kevork Thomajan, Advertigo, page 32. From the entry adventurize
  • A ram was accepted as a vicarious sacrifice in room of the royal victim.1900, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, 2nd edition, volume 2, page 37. From the entry room
  • It is true, it was a vicarious experience, else he would not have lived to profit by it.1903 July, Jack London, “The Law of Club and Fang”, in The Call of the Wild, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan &…. From the entry else

Meaning of vicarious

  1. adjective Delegated.
  2. adjective Experienced or gained by taking in another person’s experience rather than through first-hand experience, such as through watching or reading.
  3. adjective On behalf of others.

Full definition of vicarious

Questions about vicarious in a sentence

How do you use vicarious in a sentence?
Vicarious is used as an adjective. For example: “People experience vicarious pleasures through watching television.”
What is a short sentence with vicarious?
“People experience vicarious pleasures through watching television.”
What does vicarious mean?
Vicarious means delegated.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: vicarious (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use vicarious in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/vicarious. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.