vixen

vix·en

V0132000 (vĭk′sən)n.1. A female fox.2. a. A woman regarded as sexually alluring.b. A woman regarded as quarrelsome or ill-tempered.

---

[From dialectal alteration of Middle English fixen, from Old English fyxe.]

---

vix′en·ish adj.vix′en·ish·ly adv.vix′en·ish·ness n.Word History: In the traditional dialects of Devon, Somerset, and Cornwall, counties of southern England, words that begin with the voiceless fricative sounds (f) and (s) are pronounced instead with voicing, as (v) and (z). (The local rendering of the county name Somerset, in fact, is "Zomerzet.") The voicing is due to a Middle English sound change and may have roots even earlier. At least three examples of this dialectal pronunciation have entered standard English: vat, vane, and vixen. The first of these is a variant of an earlier word fat; the pronunciation with (f) was still used in the 1800s before being displaced by the southern pronunciation (văt). Vane, which used to mean "flag," has a cognate in the German word for "flag," Fahne, showing the original f. Vixen, finally, represents the southern pronunciation of a word that goes back to Old English fyxe, the feminine of fox. It was formed by a change in the root vowel of fox and the addition of a suffix -e or -en. Besides being one of the rare southern English dialect forms to have come into standard English, vixen is also the only survival of this type of feminine noun in the modern language.

vixen

(ˈvɪksən) n1. (Animals) a female fox2. a quarrelsome or spiteful woman[C15: fixen; related to Old English fyxe, feminine of fox; compare Old High German fuhsīn] ˈvixenish adj ˈvixenishly adv ˈvixenishness n ˈvixenly adv, adj

vix•en

(ˈvɪk sən)

n. 1. a female fox. 2. an ill-tempered or quarrelsome woman. [1375–1425; late Middle English (south); replacing earlier fixen, Middle English (north), for Old English fyxe, feminine of fox fox (compare Old High German fuhsin vixen)] vix′en•ish, vix′en•ly, adj.

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	vixen - a malicious woman with a fierce temperharpy, hellcatdisagreeable woman, unpleasant woman - a woman who is an unpleasant person
	2.	vixen - a female foxfox - alert carnivorous mammal with pointed muzzle and ears and a bushy tail; most are predators that do not hunt in packs

vixen

noun shrew, fury, spitfire, virago, harpy, scold, harridan, termagant (rare), hellcat, Xanthippe, ballbreaker (slang) She claims she has been caricatured as a vampish vixen by the press.

vixen

nounA person, traditionally a woman, who persistently nags or criticizes:fishwife, fury, harpy, scold, shrew, termagant, virago.Informal: battle-ax.

Translations

雌狐

vixen

(ˈviksn) noun a female fox. The vixen was followed by her cubs. 母狐 雌狐