adjective
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Also: viperine. of, relating to, or resembling a viper
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malicious
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of viperous
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.
Otherwise, the script prunes the couple’s legal battle down to one scene with Ivy’s viperous lawyer, played by Allison Janney, who brings a rottweiler to the showdown and claims it’s her service animal.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 28, 2025
I was particularly disappointed by Tatiana Maslany, as the viperous young exec Diana Christensen, who would sell her soul for ratings if only she had one to begin with.
From The New Yorker • Dec. 10, 2018
She gives herself a quick, amusing makeover, slipping on a trench coat and dyeing her hair blond, a tint that evokes Barbara Stanwyck’s viperous vamp in “Double Indemnity.”
From New York Times • Mar. 29, 2018
Tellingly, we notice these characters only when the family does; they are otherwise as invisible to us as they are to Georges, Anne and the rest of their viperous brood.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 21, 2017
And yet, are we not taught that our animal nature is throughout equally viperous?
From Yeast: a Problem by Kingsley, Charles
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.
