noun
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a female fox
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a quarrelsome or spiteful woman
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of vixen
First recorded in 1375–1425; southern late Middle English, replacing earlier northern Middle English fixen, from Old English fyxe, feminine of fox fox (compare fyxen “pertaining to a fox,” Old High German fuhsin “vixen”)
Explanation
A vixen is a female fox. Or it can be a woman with a temper. If you really want to insult a woman who is a little short on patience, call her a vixen. She won’t like it. Somewhere along the line the word vixen came to mean a hot-headed or ill-tempered person. Nowadays vixen is often used as a derisive term for an unpleasant or mean woman. Vixen also gets used frequently in descriptions of female film characters. In this way it doesn’t really mean that the character is bad tempered. As slang, to call someone a vixen means that she's sexy and flirtatious, a label she may or may not like.
Vocabulary lists containing vixen
A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Pax
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The Old Willis Place
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The vixen was found by workers in Bordesley Green, Birmingham, at about 07:00 BST, West Midlands Fire Service said.
From BBC • Aug. 11, 2023
Understandably, especially in an area that has robbed wildlife of places to den, nest and burrow, people are upset that a vixen mother with kits has been killed for attacking people.
From Washington Post • Apr. 11, 2022
In the Netflix version, Vicious is turned into a petulant man-child with daddy issues and Julia is the vixen trapped in a loveless marriage.
From New York Times • Nov. 23, 2021
Biologists said a vixen named Tule, who was tending to at least two pups in the remote Caribou Wilderness of Lassen National Forest, was at particular risk from the raging Dixie fire.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 15, 2021
The vixen pricked up her ears as if she intended to take heed of our warning.
From "The Old Willis Place" by Mary Downing Hahn
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
