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
"This vixen had taken up residence in an electricity substation after being pushed out of her parental territory," says Withyman.
From BBC ● Mar. 14, 2024
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
Keeping a mother vixen in confinement for a recommended six to 12 months would be hell on her, and the people who were bitten would still have to undergo rabies shots.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 11, 2022
Boatwright’s dæmon fell to the floor and rolled over, and Boatwright was cringing back, trying to hold his dæmon, trying to avoid the deadly white teeth of the vixen.
From "The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage" by Philip Pullman
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
The museum is jampacked with vintage advertising posters, antique bottles, miniature models of distilleries and paraphernalia, including mid-century decanters shaped like traditionally dressed Dutch matrons, sassy vixens and Uncle Sam.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 18, 2021
A red fox perched on a stump, two dusky kits peeking around the vixens back.
From "Bone Gap" by Laura Ruby
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.
