Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A change or variation.
- n. The quality of being changeable; mutability.
- n. 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.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Regular change or succession of one thing to another; alternation.
- n. A passing from one state or condition to another; irregular change; revolution; mutation: as, the vicissitudes of fortune.
Wiktionary
- n. Regular change or succession from one thing to another, or one part of a cycle to the next; alternation; mutual succession; interchange.
- n. often plural a change, especially in one's life or fortunes.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Regular change or succession from one thing to another; alternation; mutual succession; interchange.
- n. Irregular change; revolution; mutation.
- n. Changing conditions of fortune in one's life; life's ups and downs.
WordNet 3.0
- n. mutability in life or nature (especially successive alternation from one condition to another)
- n. a variation in circumstances or fortune at different times in your life or in the development of something
Etymologies
- From Latin vicissitudo ("change"), from vicissim ("on the other hand, in turn"), from vicis ("change, vicissitude"), whence Spanish vez and French fois ("time (as in next time), occurrence"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin vicissitūdō, from vicissim, in turn, probably from vicēs, pl. of *vix, change; see weik-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The fact, of course, is that it is just the variety of experience which makes life interesting, -- toil and rest, pain and relief, hope and satisfaction, danger and security, -- and if we once remove the idea of vicissitude from life, it all becomes an indolent and uninspiring affair.”
“And here we see, by a kind of vicissitude and return, it kindles hell itself for the calumniator.”
“Surprised By Joy, composed some time after her death, is the most touching of elegies, the movement of the verse mirroring the movement of the body, heart and mind, the simplicity of diction shockingly enriched by the Latinate "vicissitude".”
“Never, in the days of vicissitude that came later, did Taiwun doubt my claim of Korean birth.”
“All of us to a greater or lesser degree have a streak of psychopathy which makes every vicissitude of human experience – including our own – potential writing fodder.”
“All of us to a greater or lesser degree have a streak of psychopathy which makes every vicissitude of human experience – including our own – potential writing fodder ….”
“In a letter to his son written in 1537, he looked back on a life of vicissitude; "a thousand dangers and hazards, enmities, hatreds, prisonments, despites and indignations".”
The Guardian: The Many Lives of Thomas Wyatt by Nicola Shulman - review
“It is given that travail and vicissitude mark time to man's footsteps as he stumbles onward toward the grave; and it is well.”
“I followed her like a duckling, learning how to glide smoothly upon the waters of writerly vicissitude.”
“Then in a resonant, pedantic tone, reminiscent of the age, the art restorer snarls: Damn fools — perception rests on guarded obliqueness — destitute meandering of sight — guttural vicissitude kept well hidden behind the eye allows us to envision cold tomorrows without the trumpeting of the glib future — Bob interrupts her: Who are you?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘vicissitude’.
-
GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
-
Muse's tacet ,to learn
Music brings silence's to raging thoughts and temperament , calm, as it is our object of definite purpose.
tacet, cadence, tempo, treble clef, penultimate, lexicon, origin, orchestra, kantele, magus, eros, coalesce and 248 more...
-
My first list
exposition, anecdote, perspicacious, polemic, imbroglio, irascible, vicissitude, venality, payola, amatory, caliginous, avuncular and 5 more...
-
Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
-
From reading
Collected from reading
venerate, reprobate, reticent, adoration, ethereal, ephemeral, equivocal, contumacious, heinous, solicitous, agnostic, aberration and 335 more...
-
Naresh_Gre2
convoke, cosset, coterie, declaim, distaff, doff, dovetail, droll, dyspeptic, egress, ersatz, euphemism and 108 more...
-
Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
-
man gre
abase, abeyance, abreast, abscission, abscond, abyss, accede, accretion, acerbic, acidulous, acumen, adulterate and 483 more...
-
Remember Not To Forget
Sephardic, Umwelt, amphiboly, untrammeled, sequela, pandiculation, tensegrity, syncretism, pugilism, shemagh, disquisition, perspicacity and 61 more...
-
Specificity
Words that have with subtly different meanings from other words.
vestibule, commoditize, commodify, monetize, corroborate, mezzanine, apposite, irony, calefacient, maxim, pandiculate, rarefaction and 39 more...
-
big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
-
My List
frugal, vicissitude, scatter, fiduciary, calf, mesmerize, eke, unkempt, callousness, heist, fumble, flinty and 31 more...
-
gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1827 more...
-
magoosh1
aberration, aboveboard, abysmal, ace, affable, aghast, alacrity, ambiguous, ambivalent, ameliorate, amenable, amiable and 215 more...
-
Words from Moby Dick
frigate, presumptuous, genteel, succor, hearthstone, gentry, factitious, bilious, insurgent, portent, enervate, genuflect and 303 more...
-
All The Words
I enjoy collecting words, for I have no fear of them ever running out.
anacoluthon, defenestration, hypnopomp, hypnagogue, idioglossia, panopticon, tatterdemalion, abalone, caltrop, miasma, paroxysm, smalt and 475 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for vicissitude.
mkluver1 I read this in Ironside by Holly Black, " the moment was vicissitude. " Oct 1, 2010
utarcher In episode three, season three of True Blood, the character named Russell Edgington, the Vampire King of Mississippi, says this word with a deep southern drawl. You can tell he really relishes the sound of the word.
The King speaks of how much Bill loves Sookie and lets him know that if Bill doesn't turn her into a vampire, then "the alternative is to subject her to the vicissitudes of mortality and to the mercy of forces such as, for instance... me." Jul 9, 2010
papageno "Vicissitudes are boxing our heads,
Like they just want to emaciate them forever."
-"Suffer for Fashion," Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? Nov 22, 2007