Oh my word: Vicious, Viscous

Vicious circles abound in India: caste, certain customs, corruption…endlessly. Vicious means savage, cruel, someone doing something to another person with an evil intention, spiteful to others; vicious means depraved, prone to vices or given to vices; referring to animals, vicious means savage, dangerous. Why she has such a vicious face most of the time?

People dislike vicious comments from others. Vicious robbers especially on the platforms of train stations in many parts of India can chop earlobes laden with ear-rings.

Vicious drivers are not uncommon to see on the Indian roads for there is no medicine for the road rage unless the licence-issuers envisage some remedial measures.

In politics, political leaders should be prepared for vicious comments against their actions or against their policies. Law-enforcing agencies can react viciously in the country such as the police or the corrupt politicians and judges.

How to come out of the vicious habits? Consult your dear ones, or a psychologist or psychiatrist!

For survival, animals behave viciously in order to survive unlike humans possessed by greed.

Informally, vicious refers to something severe. I am suffering vicious headache…

Vicious circle is an idiom. Is the Indian state caught in vicious cycle of corruption at all levels of governance – from rural to national level?

Vicious circle (not cycle) means a state of affairs or things in which a cause produces an effect which itself produces the original cause, so continuing the whole process; a complex chain of events.

You go for a job interview they ask for experience…it’s a vicious circle!

India’s vicious circle of corruption can only be rooted out when the whole society pledges to transform from top to bottom: panchayat president to prime minister; from voters to politicians…

Vicious spiral means continuous rise in one thing such as prices of vegetables and houses cause by a continuous rise in something else such as the wages or salaries, or incomes. The variants of the adjective vicious are viciously (adverb) and viciousness (noun).

Viscous means something thick, gummy; referring to a liquid, viscous means not pouring easily into something; thick and sticky.

Viscous is an adjective; viscosity is a noun.

Blood is viscous. The police gathered around the dead body of the person who was murdered but the police arrived with forensic experts who wanted to examine the viscous blood.

Viscous pools of mud are not an uncommon sight across India especially when it rains. Most of the sewage channels in the urban centres are so unplanned they are an ugly sight of viscous and dirty water. Keep away from eating the deep-fried items such as pakoras, samosas…for they would have been deep-fired in viscous oils (which would have been used again, and gain).

By: Kovuuri G Reddy