Word of the Day:
vicarious
What It Means
Delegated.
Experienced or gained by taking in another person’s experience rather than through first-hand experience, such as through watching or reading.
On behalf of others.
The concept of vicarious atonement, that one person can atone for the sins of another, is found in many religions.
Vicarious in Context
“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.”
Did You Know?
From Latin vicārius (“vicarious, substituted”) + English -ous. First attested in the 17th century. Doublet of vicar.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: vicarious (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “vicarious.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/vicarious. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
