What's the difference between ferocious and vicious?

Ferocious


Definition:

  • (a.) Fierce; savage; wild; indicating cruelty; ravenous; rapacious; as, ferocious look or features; a ferocious lion.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He has opinions on everything, and he hurls them at you so enthusiastically, so ferociously, that before long you feel battered.
  • (2) So, in The Devil Wears Prada , the ferocious magazine chief played by Meryl Streep is beset by secret misery: unfaithful husband, tricky kids, wig issues.
  • (3) But Klein – who over the years has endured pro-corporate backlash of her two earlier books and a ferocious assault for criticising Israel’s conduct against the Palestinians, says she is ready for it.
  • (4) In the past year the Turkish military has been engaged in a ferocious conflict with the country’s Kurdish minority.
  • (5) Either way, he said the harshness of the current campaign reflected Xi’s nervousness as he attempted bold and potentially destabilising reforms of the economy , the military and the Communist party itself, through a ferocious anti-corruption campaign .
  • (6) It passed into the statute books on Saturday after months of furious and often ferocious debate, protest and violence.
  • (7) While Liverpool seemed stretched by cruel successive away fixtures, Chelsea arguably mustered some of their finest attacking football of the campaign through that ferocious opening period.
  • (8) A man of such ferocious spirit should not be remembered as a reactionary prude.
  • (9) Admittedly Mourinho's side rallied after Yoan Gouffran headed Yohan Cabaye's ferociously whipped in free kick past Petr Cech but Newcastle's Mathieu Debuchy and Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa especially were defending brilliantly and Chelsea came undone on the counter-attack as a fine cross from the underrated Vurnon Anita prefaced Loïc Rémy's wonderful finish.
  • (10) The Zintanis hold the airport and a wedge-shaped area in the south and west, all of it now the scene of ferocious violence.
  • (11) Their European tour , which finishes in London on Monday, is sold out and there seems to be a general consensus that Pixies, who suddenly find themselves with everything to prove, are playing ferociously.
  • (12) They felt the opposition would be in Washington and did not anticipate the public would take on Obama as ferociously as they have."
  • (13) UK watchdog accused of bowing to pressure from 'big six' energy suppliers Read more However, it was not temporary precipitation that meant the CMA produced a damp squib but months of ferocious lobbying by the big six to ensure the industry is left largely in its existing state.
  • (14) Porters, rickshaw drivers, nurses, patients, students, bureaucrats, doctors and itinerant holy men all stand to eat their heavily subsidised meals, priced at no more than 5 rupees (5p) and eaten at ferocious speed with fingers from tin plates.
  • (15) Hague suggests that the Lib Dems are just posturing when they claim they are fighting ferociously with the Tories.
  • (16) On a modest street in a rundown area, Aziz Kara, a 64-year-old Turk, became embroiled in a ferocious argument with his neighbours.
  • (17) That was before Scorsese stepped into the debate with a firmly-worded open letter to the LA Times calling for Blackie to be added to the list of nominees for what he described as "an uncompromising performance as a ferocious guard dog who terrorises children" in Hugo, which is up for 11 Oscars.
  • (18) The friend's walls were covered in cheap porn, and every person I speak to in the hostel has ferocious love-bites on their necks.
  • (19) A ferocious interior lineman who has drawn comparison with Houston's JJ Watt, Floyd will help compensate for the departure of seven-time Pro Bowler Richard Seymour.
  • (20) Those chaotic early years instilled in Xi a ferocious determination to succeed, those who have met him say.

Vicious


Definition:

  • (a.) Characterized by vice or defects; defective; faulty; imperfect.
  • (a.) Addicted to vice; corrupt in principles or conduct; depraved; wicked; as, vicious children; vicious examples; vicious conduct.
  • (a.) Wanting purity; foul; bad; noxious; as, vicious air, water, etc.
  • (a.) Not correct or pure; corrupt; as, vicious language; vicious idioms.
  • (a.) Not well tamed or broken; given to bad tricks; unruly; refractory; as, a vicious horse.
  • (a.) Bitter; spiteful; malignant.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Los Angeles were relentless in their vicious pursuit of a game-tying goal on Wednesday, bidding to send Game 4 into overtime.
  • (2) But when in mid-October two of the artists received death threats, the menaces were widely reported and rekindled debate, prompting vicious, anti-Muslim comments on Danish talk shows.
  • (3) When he attacked New York, his vicious crusade was as much against skyscrapers as it was against western values and the US.
  • (4) A vicious feud playing out within Uzbekistan's ruling family took a new twist on Monday , when prosecutors announced that the clan's most flamboyant member faces charges of involvement in mafia-style corruption.
  • (5) This was evident just this week when, as an example, a young woman in San Francisco was viciously killed by a five-time deported Mexican with a long criminal record, who was forced back into the United States because they didn’t want him in Mexico.
  • (6) Each of these reactions can increase the perception of chest pain, contributing to a vicious cycle that exacerbates both the chest pain and the anxiety.
  • (7) This vicious circle should be broken rather by finding optimal conditions than by a middle course determined by experimental requirements, economical frames and general notions about what may be good for the animal.
  • (8) In spite of the relatively large sample and the given number of variables the problem of the vicious circle might occur.
  • (9) Recent data are cited for the proposition that these changes constitute a closed pathogenetic concatenation creating a vicious circle.
  • (10) When there is upheaval within China’s own borders – riots, protests, vicious political power struggles – hardly a sniff of it will be found in the pages of the country’s heavily-controlled press.
  • (11) According to the International Crisis Group , tensions within and between the two major political parties, competing claims to the presidency between northern and Niger Delta politicians and along religious lines, along with inadequate preparations by the electoral commission and apparent bias by security agencies, suggest the country is heading toward a volatile and vicious electoral contest.
  • (12) A vicious circle with the increased resistance as the key factor can be identified.
  • (13) This vicious cycle could be interrupted by segmental epidural anesthesia with procaine as well as by blockade of sympathoexcitation at the central nervous level with clonidine in anesthetized dogs.
  • (14) This is in stark comparison to the gruesome, vicious suffering that he inflicted on his two victims – and the lifetime of suffering he has caused their family.” Wood was executed for shooting to death Debra Dietz, his former girlfriend, and her father, Eugene Dietz, in Tucson in 1989.
  • (15) Spicer, who so viciously attacked the press on Saturday, had to hurriedly walk back the comments of his boss when Trump, during an interview with the Washington Post before the inauguration, promised “insurance for everybody”.
  • (16) Using mathematical models of the population dynamics of T helper cells, HIV and other pathogens we address three facets of the interactions between HIV and other pathogens: enhanced HIV replication due to immune stimulation by other pathogens; modified immune control of other pathogens due to immunosuppression by HIV; and the vicious circle formed by positive feedback between these two effects.
  • (17) Since the initially peaceful demonstrations against his regime began more than three years ago, he has proved himself, by turns, foolish, craven and vicious.
  • (18) He said US prisons were tough and safe enough to handle the most vicious al-Qaida terrorist suspects now held at Guantánamo.
  • (19) When Cruise announced last October that he was suing Bauer, his lawyer, Bert Fields, described the claim that the actor had deserted his daughter as a “vicious lie”.
  • (20) Meanwhile, people in poor countries are already battling its vicious storms.