vicissitude

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“
The volume of vicissitude, and take

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Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A change or variation.
  2. noun The quality of being changeable; mutability.
  3. noun One of the sudden or unexpected changes or shifts often encountered in one's life, activities, or surroundings. Often used in the plural. See Synonyms at difficulty.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • I was named Olaudah, which, in our language, signifies vicissitude or fortune also, one favoured, and having a loud voice and well spoken. —  The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself. Vol. I.
  • Their emotions came and went with quick vicissitude, and sometimes combined to form a peculiar and delicious excitement, the mirth brightening the gloom into a sunny shower of feeling, and a rainbow in the mind. —  Sketches and Studies
  • In a world of vicissitude, Mr. Steward has received no ordinary share, and we hope, while his book may do the world good, it may prove a substantial benefit to him in his declining years. —  Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman
  • The history of the rise and progress of British power in India—of that strange and rapid vicissitude, by which the ancient Empire of the Moguls was transferred into the hands of a Company of Merchants in Leadenhall Street—furnishes matter perhaps more than any other that could be mentioned, for those strong contrasts and startling associations, to which eloquence and wit often owe their most striking effects. —  Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1
  • I was named Olaudah , which, in our language, signifies vicissitude or fortune also, one favoured, and having a loud voice and well spoken. —  The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African
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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Latin vicissitūdō, from vicissim, in turn, probably from vicēs, pl. of *vix, change; see weik-2 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = French vicissitude = Spanish vicisitud = Portuguese vicissitude, from Latin vicissitudo, change, from vicissim, by turns, from vix (vic-), change: see vice.
 

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/vɪˈsɪsɪtjud/
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