or fixen, subs. (colloquial).—An ill-natured, snarling man or woman, a termagant, a scold. Also VIXENISH (or VIXENLY) = ill-tempered, snappish, snarling, turbulent.
1575. R[ICHARD] B[OWER], Appius and Virginia [DODSLEY, Old Plays (HAZLITT), iv. 120]. Mansipulus. By the gods, how ungraciously the VIXEN she chatteth.
1590. PEELE, The Old Wives Tale. Clant. I thinke this be the curstest queane in the world, you see what she is, a little faire, but as prowd as the deuell, and the veriest VIXEN that liues vpon Gods earth.
1592. SHAKESPEARE, Midsummer Night’s Dream, iii. 2. 325.
| She was a VIXEN, when she went to school; | |
| And, though she be but little, she is fierce. |
d. 1677. BARROW, Sermons, I. xvii. These fiery VIXENS … really do themselves embroil things, and raise miserable combustions in the world. Ibid., Pope’s Supremacy. A VIXENLY pope.
1709. CONGREVE, Ovid’s Art of Love, iii.
| I hate a VIXEN, that her maid assails, | |
| And scratches with her bodkin or her nails. |
1816. SCOTT, The Antiquary, xxii. His VIXEN brawls, and breaking God’s peace and the King’s.
1837. DICKENS, Pickwick Papers, xiv. So Tom Smart and his clay-coloured gig with the red wheels, and the VIXENISH mare with the fast pace, went on together.
1849–61. MACAULAY, The History of England, xv. ‘That may be very honourable in you,’ said the pertinacious VIXEN.
1850. HAWTHORNE, The Scarlet Letter, Introductory, p. 4. VIXENLY as she looks, many people are seeking, at this very moment, to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle.
1866. G. ELIOT, Felix Holt, xi. The shrill biting talk of a VIXENISH wife.
