vixen
noun/ˈvɪk.sən/
Etymology Alteration of earlier fixen, from Middle English fixen, from Old English *fyxen (compare also Old English fyxe (“female fox”)), from Proto-West Germanic *fuhsini, from Proto-Germanic *fuhsinī; the voiced v- comes from the Southern dialectal forms of Middle English. Alternatively, from the Old English adjective fyxen (“of the fox”), as in the phrase fixen hȳd (“fox skin”; compare Middle English foxen fox).
1
A female fox.
2
A malicious, quarrelsome or temperamental woman.
- He was prudent and industrious, and so good a husbandman, that he might have led a very easy and comfortable life, had not an arrant vixen of a wife soured his domestic quiet.1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC:
- […] and if Solomon was as wise as he is reputed to be, I feel sure that when he compared a contentious woman to a continual dripping on a very rainy day, he had not a vixen in his eye–a fury with long nails, acrid and selfish.1859, George Eliot, Adam Bede, Köln: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, published 1999, page 54:
1 more example
- (Mimic): 'I used the plans to build a Steam Engine of my own. I was almost done when that vixen swiped it!'2002 June 2, WayForward, Shantae, Game Boy Color, level/area: Mimic's Dock:
3
Colloquial A racy or salacious woman who is sexually attractive; any attractive woman.
4
Colloquial A wife who has sex with other men with her husband's consent.
- 2018, ‘Stag’ men love watching other guys have sex with their wives… but it’s not cuckolding The stag gets a thrill from watching his vixen have sex with another man.
- Derived terms
- silver vixen, video vixen