VIXEN
What does "VIXEN" mean?
A female fox.
Meanings
- A female fox. The vixen led her cubs out of the den at dusk.
- A woman regarded as fierce, quarrelsome, or seductive. The role cast her as a scheming vixen. informal
Did you know?
- 'Vixen' is a linguistic fossil: it is the only standard English word in which a native Old English initial 'f' survived as 'v', preserving a southern dialect that voiced f-sounds (the same accent that once said 'vather' for father).
Word origin
From Old English 'fyxe', the feminine of 'fox'; the initial 'v' reflects a southern English dialect that voiced 'f' to 'v', which is why we say vixen, not 'fixen'.
Remember it
VIXEN = a fox that's a 'she'; the V is the southern accent's voiced version of fox's F.
A little poem
Snow keeps her secrets-
the vixen writes one red line
back to her hidden young.
haiku
Wordplay
- Why is the female fox spelled with a V? Because down south, even the foxes had an accent.
What it teaches
A single odd letter can be a whole lost dialect quietly outliving the people who spoke it.
Quick facts
What does VIXEN mean?
A female fox.
Is VIXEN a valid word?
Yes — VIXEN is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is VIXEN?
VIXEN has 5 letters and 2 syllables.
Where does VIXEN come from?
From Old English 'fyxe', the feminine of 'fox'; the initial 'v' reflects a southern English dialect that voiced 'f' to 'v', which is why we say vixen, not 'fixen'.
What can VIXEN teach us?
A single odd letter can be a whole lost dialect quietly outliving the people who spoke it.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.