vitious

English

Etymology

From Latin vitiōsus.

Adjective

vitious (comparative more vitious, superlative most vitious)

1. Obsolete form of vicious.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Matter of doubt and dread suspitious, / That doth with curelesse care consume the hart, / Corrupts the stomacke with gall vitious, / Croscuts the liuer with internall smart, / And doth transfixe the soule with deathes eternall dart.

   • 1649, J[ohn] Milton, chapter IX, in ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ [Eikonoklástēs] […], London: […] Matthew Simmons, […], →OCLC, pages 79–80:

     For our Religion where was there a more ignorant, profane, and vitious clergy, learned in nothing but the antiquitie of thir pride, thir covetouſnesſs and ſuperſtition

   • c. 1670s (date written), Thomas Brown [i.e., Thomas Browne], “Sect[ion] XX”, in John Jeffery, editor, Christian Morals, […], Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] [A]t the University-Press, for Cornelius Crownfield printer to the University; and are to be sold by Mr. Knapton […]; and Mr. [John] Morphew […], published 1716, →OCLC, part III, page 109:

     And therefore ſo many, who are ſiniſtrous unto Good Actions, are Ambi-dexterous unto bad, and Vulcans in virtuous Paths, Achilleſes in vitious motions.