Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Experienced through the imagination by participation in another's experience: Feeling or enjoyment that comes from imagining or observing the experiences of another person.
   • Endured or done by one person as a substitute for another: Performed or suffered by someone in place of another.
   • Occurring in an abnormal part of the body instead of the usual site: Used in medical contexts to describe a function happening in an unusual location.

Examples of Usage

• Adjective:
  • She gets vicarious pleasure from reading her daughter's travel blog.
  • The father felt a vicarious sense of pride when his son won the award.
  • Vicarious liability is a legal doctrine where one party is held responsible for the actions of another.
  • The patient experienced vicarious menstruation.

Advanced Usage

• "Vicarious atonement": A theological concept where one person atones for the sins of another.
  • The doctrine of vicarious atonement is central to some religions.
• "Vicarious liability": A legal principle where one person (e.g., an employer) is held responsible for the wrongful acts of another (e.g., an employee).
  • The company faced a lawsuit based on vicarious liability for the accident caused by its driver.

Variants and Related Words

• Vicariously (adverb): In a vicarious manner.
  • He lived vicariously through the adventures in the novels he read.

Synonyms

• Substitute: Acting or serving in place of another.
• Secondhand: Received from or through an intermediary; not direct.
• By proxy: Done by authorized delegation.

Related Phrases

• Vicarious learning: Learning that occurs by observing the actions and consequences for others.
  • Children often engage in vicarious learning by watching their parents.
• Vicarious trauma: Emotional duress that results when an individual hears about the firsthand trauma experiences of another.
  • Therapists must guard against vicarious trauma from listening to clients' difficult stories.

Related Idioms

• To live vicariously through someone: To gain satisfaction or experience life indirectly through the actions and experiences of another person.
  • Since she couldn't travel, she lived vicariously through her friend's photos from around the world.

Adjective

1. suffered or done by one person as a substitute for another
   • vicarious atonement
2. occurring in an abnormal part of the body instead of the usual site involved in that function
   • vicarious menstruation
3. experienced at secondhand
   • read about mountain climbing and felt vicarious excitement