Word.ws English Dictionary

vicarious

/vaɪˈkɛɹi.əs/UK/vɪˈkɛəɹi.əs/

vicarious adjective: delegated.

vicarious: a large crowd of people in a building
Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

Adjective

vicarious (not comparable)

  1. Delegated.
  2. 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...1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 10, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
  3. 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.1900, James Frazer, chapter 26, in The Golden Bough

vicarious meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

vicarious in Tamil

பிரதி

vicarious in Urdu

موکل, نمائندہ, سپرد کیا ہوا

vicarious in Bengali

অন্যের অভিজ্ঞতার মাধ্যমে অনুভূত, পরোক্ষ

vicarious in Malayalam

second-hand, indirect, secondary
പരോക്ഷ, മറ്റൊരാളിൽകൂടിയുള്ള, മറ്റൊരാൾ മുഖേന, നേരിട്ടല്ലാത്ത, മറ്റൊരു വഴിയിലൂടെയുള്ള, വ്യുൽപന്നം
More languagesFewer languages
vicarious in Kannada
ಪ್ರಾತಿನಿಧಿಕ, ಪರಾನುಭವದ ಮೂಲಕ ಒದಗುವ, ಪರಾರ್ಥಕ, ಇತರರ ಪರವಾಗಿ ಅನುಭವಿಸುವ

Examples of vicarious in a sentence

  • When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity.1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 10, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde:
  • 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...

All 10 example sentences with vicarious

Origin of vicarious

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

Words formed from vicarious

Phrases with vicarious

Words that rhyme with vicarious

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about vicarious

What does vicarious mean?
Vicarious means delegated.
What is vicarious in Tamil?
Vicarious in Tamil is பிரதி. See Vicarious meaning in Tamil.
How do you use vicarious in a sentence?
When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity.
What part of speech is vicarious?
Vicarious is an adjective.
How do you pronounce vicarious?
Vicarious is pronounced /vɪˈkɛəɹi.əs/ (UK).

Words near vicarious in the dictionary

  1. vicaries
  2. vicariism
  3. vicariisms
  4. Vicario
  5. Vicarios
  6. vicarious
  7. vicarious atonement
  8. vicarious atonements
  9. vicarious embarrassment
  10. vicarious embarrassments
  11. vicarious learning

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: vicarious (page history and authors); vicarious (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); vicarious (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); vicarious (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); vicarious (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); vicarious (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “vicarious.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/vicarious. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.