Vicarious vs Vaporous - What's the difference?
vicarious | vaporous |
Experienced or gained by the loss or to the consequence of another, such as through watching or reading.
Done on behalf of others
Relating to vapour; misty, foggy, obscure, insubstantial.
* 1594, William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece
* 1605, Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning
As adjectives the difference between vicarious and vaporous
is that vicarious is experienced or gained by the loss or to the consequence of another, such as through watching or reading while vaporous is relating to vapour; misty, foggy, obscure, insubstantial.vicarious
English
Adjective
(-)- People experience vicarious pleasures through watching television.
- The concept of vicarious atonement, that one person can atone for the sins of another, is found in many religions.
Quotations
{{timeline, 1800s=1886, 1900s=1900 1920}} * 1886 — ch 10 *: The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous. When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. * 1900 — ch 26 *: As time went on, the cruel custom was so far mitigated that a ram was accepted as a vicarious sacrifice in room of the royal victim. * 1920 — ch III *: In these, however, he had not much time to indulge, for a footman, still decked in the trappings of vicarious grief, opened the door with the most startling promptitude, and he was ushered upstairs into a small but richly furnished room.Derived terms
* vicarious atonement * vicarious learning * vicarious liability * vicarious reinforcementvaporous
English
Alternative forms
* vapourousAdjective
(en adjective)- O hateful, vaporous , and foggy night!
- So whosoever shall entertain high and vaporous imaginations, instead of a laborious and sober inquiry of truth, shall beget hopes and beliefs of strange and impossible shapes.