noun
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a female fox
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a quarrelsome or spiteful woman
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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.
See Examples For:
Or if Gein’s rumored girlfriend, Adeline Watkins, was the cruel, gore-obsessed vixen that Suzanna Son’s performance makes her out to be.
From Salon ● Oct. 29, 2025
Waters’ muse Divine, the drag performer who was transfixing on screen whether playing a criminal vixen or a put-upon suburban mom, passed away in 1988.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2023
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
The vixen swiped at one of the coyotes from above, taunting him, and Pax snapped at the other’s flank.
From "Pax" by Sara Pennypacker
The high-pitched wails heard in winter are usually made by vixens as they try to summon a mate.
From BBC ● Feb. 8, 2024
You know the type I’m talking about – the cruel and elegant vixens, the glittery fire-breathers, the flawlessly manicured soul-devourers.
From Salon ● Jan. 31, 2024
A new study in mice, but with implications for people and published Wednesday in the journal Nature, provides a clearer picture of the cellular glitches that turn us into silver foxes and vixens.
From New York Times ● Apr. 19, 2023
Turner bought books on screenwriting and in two weeks had a draft of his first screenplay, “Video Girl,” which examined the dark side of ’90s music video vixens.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2020
A red fox perched on a stump, two dusky kits peeking around the vixens back.
From "Bone Gap" by Laura Ruby
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
