How to Use vicious in a Sentence

vicious

adjective
Definition of viciousnext
Synonyms for viciousnext
  • I know you're upset with her, but there's no need to be vicious.
  • This fight cuts to the heart of the often vicious disagreements about what role AI should have in our world.
    — Kate Knibbs, WIRED, 4 Sep. 2023
  • That top line is vicious, but the Huskies need not always rely on them.
    — Kat Cornetta, BostonGlobe.com, 13 Feb. 2023
  • Years earlier the two had been in a vicious fight that put Abed in the hospital.
    — Nathan Thrall, Curbed, 25 Oct. 2023
  • The payments set a vicious cycle that shows no signs of slowing.
    — Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 14 Nov. 2023
  • He’s known to fire off a vicious tweet (or whatever they’re called in the land of X) to call out the fearmongers.
    — Steven Levy, WIRED, 22 Dec. 2023
  • Over the next dozen years, Haitian rebels and French soldiers waged a vicious war of attrition.
    — Matthew Brown, Washington Post, 24 Mar. 2024
  • Again, don’t expect a high number of reps, but expect a vicious pump at the end your drop set.
    — Jeff Tomko, Men's Health, 24 Mar. 2023
  • An inability to sleep can be the start of a vicious cycle.
    — Yuliya Klochan, Health, 30 Mar. 2024
  • Soaring with the ball in his right hand, Jaquez threw down a vicious dunk over the helpless defender.
    — Austin Knoblauchassistant Editor, Los Angeles Times, 3 Mar. 2023
  • Uncle followed the first blow with even more vicious ones, and each crack of the whip sounded like thunder in my ears.
    — Mohammed Naseehu Ali, The New Yorker, 25 Mar. 2024
  • World & Nation The Ukraine war’s most vicious fight is happening in Bakhmut.
    — Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 25 Apr. 2023
  • Yeoh is fierce and cutthroat in the role, alternately motherly and vicious from one turn to the next.
    — Aramide Tinubu, Variety, 4 Jan. 2024
  • This is a vicious crime where most often the victim is a woman; the perpetrator, a man.
    — Juan P. Madrid, Scientific American, 4 Jan. 2024
  • Some of the reaction was – and still is – brutally vicious.
    — Nancy Armour, USA TODAY, 30 Aug. 2023
  • The vicious winds propelled the flames into the town, turning a wildfire into an urban one.
    — Thomas Fuller, New York Times, 10 Aug. 2023
  • At this point all of the other writers were passing vicious notes back and forth and quietly plotting to take over the show from me.
    — Anonymous, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 June 2023
  • But add the stress and trauma of living on the edge of financial ruin and a vicious spiral begins to take shape.
    — Ryan Fonseca, Los Angeles Times, 21 June 2023
  • The debate in the U.S. over Russia and Ukraine has become one of the most vicious foreign-policy disputes in years.
    — Keith Gessen, The New Yorker, 29 Aug. 2023
  • This can contribute to the vicious cycle of anxiety and sleep.
    — Mark Gurarie, Health, 23 Sep. 2023
  • But then a series of vicious storms, fuelled in part by the warm waters of El Niño, had washed away more than thirty feet of the cliff beneath their homes.
    — Daniel A. Gross, The New Yorker, 5 Nov. 2023
  • The end came as the result of a vicious left hook to the body that seemed to electrocute Fortea, forcing him to take a knee and surrender to the referee's ten count.
    — Brian Mazique, Forbes, 11 Dec. 2023
  • The quaint forests look peaceful, but the markers left behind are an ever-present reminder of the vicious fighting that took place here just months ago.
    — Thomas Mutch, Popular Mechanics, 21 Mar. 2023
  • Conclusion Whether lack of sleep is a cause or consequence of chronic pain, the need to break this vicious cycle stands.
    — Brianna Kamienski, The Arizona Republic, 23 Feb. 2024
  • Now, Utah appears to be locked in a vicious cycle: When the snow melts earlier in the spring, that means the landscape dries out more quickly during the heat of the summer.
    — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 6 July 2023
  • The former football player, who spent one season with the Atlanta Falcons in 2009, and his beauty pageant wife were in the midst of a vicious divorce.
    — Rebecca Rosenberg, Fox News, 2 Aug. 2023
  • The blowback from Republicans has been swift and vicious.
    — Annie Karni, New York Times, 19 Mar. 2024
  • The trampling of the Queen’s reputation was both a democratic strike against the monarchy and a form of vicious misogyny.
    — Daniel Immerwahr, The New Yorker, 13 Nov. 2023
  • Iman’s past catches up with him in a vicious way at a training camp where Swedish wrestlers go up against the Iranian national team.
    — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 25 Feb. 2023
  • China and the United States may be trapped in such a vicious cycle, but China and Taiwan certainly are not.
    — Foreign Affairs, 20 Feb. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'vicious.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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