vicissitude
[vi-sis-i-tood, -tyood]
- a change or variation occurring in the course of something.
- interchange or alternation, as of states or things.
- vicissitudes, successive, alternating, or changing phases or conditions, as of life or fortune; ups and downs: They remained friends through the vicissitudes of 40 years.
- regular change or succession of one state or thing to another.
- change; mutation; mutability.
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Origin of vicissitude
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
fluctuationpermutationrevolutiondiversityprogressionvarietyshiftuncertaintynoveltyalterationvariationswitchturnaroundmutationreversalinnovationflip-flopsportabout-facealternationExamples from the Web for vicissitudes
Contemporary Examples
Art must be used in service of the people—and is always subject to the vicissitudes of the party line.
One by one, nine men, all military veterans, updated the judge on the vicissitudes of their week.
But no matter what the vicissitudes of life, I am still glad that I came of age in Boston, and that it taught me what it did.
Historical Examples
Both will afford me encouragement and support in the vicissitudes which yet await me.
The following cheap and valuable composition will preserve all sorts of wood work exposed to the vicissitudes of the weather.
These laws have had their vicissitudes, and are not yet free from complications.
The European governments have undergone the vicissitudes of fortune.
Since then my life has been passed in all the vicissitudes of war and peace.
The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, CompleteCharles James Lever (1806-1872)
vicissitude
- variation or mutability in nature or life, esp successive alternation from one condition or thing to another
- a variation in circumstance, fortune, character, etc
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Word Origin
C16: from Latin vicissitūdō, from vicis change, alternation
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for vicissitudes
vicissitude
n.
1560s, from Middle French vicissitude (14c.), from Latin vicissitudinem (nominative vicissitudo) "change," from vicissim "changeably, in turn," from vicis "a turn, change" (see vicarious). Related: Vicissitudes.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper