vicious

adj

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“vicious” is uncommon French (frequency #89,296 among 148,117 “V” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#89,296
frequency rank, French
148,117
“V” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Vicieux.

Key facts for vicious
PropertyValue
Headwordvicious
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
Letters7
Frequency rank#89,296
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “vicious” sits in French frequency

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right). vicious lands here:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

vicious is uncommon French at frequency #89,296 among 148,117 “V” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

vicious has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is vicious, spelled V-I-C-I-O-U-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    Vicieux.
  2. 2
    Méchant, perfide.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "vicious"?
"vicious" is spelled V-I-C-I-O-U-S.
What does "vicious" mean?
As an adjective, "vicious" means: Vicieux.
What language does "vicious" come from?
"vicious" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “vicious”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct French spelling is V-I-C-I-O-U-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words

Other uncommon French words near this rank

Data Source

Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list