Vicious or viscous?
vicious is an adjective meaning “Violent, destructive and cruel”; viscous is an adjective meaning “Having a thick, sticky consistency between solid and liquid (that is, a high…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) vicious is about 7.8 times as common as viscous.
What is the difference between vicious and viscous?
| vicious | viscous | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective | adjective |
| Meaning | Violent, destructive and cruel Savage and aggressive | Having a thick, sticky consistency between solid and liquid (that is, a high viscosity) Of or pertaining to viscosity |
| Example | We may so seize on vertue, that if we embrace it with an over-greedy and violent desire, it may become vicious | viscous coefficient |
| Forms | viciouser, viciousest | none |
| Pronunciation | /ˈvɪʃəs/ | /ˈvɪs.kəs/ |
| In writing | 6.8 times per million words | about once in every 1 million words |
Sources: vicious and viscous in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of vicious and viscous
vicious
- 1
Violent, destructive and cruel
- 2
Savage and aggressive
viscous
- 1
Having a thick, sticky consistency between solid and liquid (that is, a high viscosity)
- 2
Of or pertaining to viscosity
viscous coefficient
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, vicious or viscous?
vicious appears 6.8 times per million words; viscous about once in every 1 million words.
vicious 6.8 times per million wordsviscous about once in every 1 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search vicious vs viscous?
“vicious vs viscous” is searched about 1,000 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“viscous vs vicious”, “vicious or viscous”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.