Alteration of earlier fixen, from Middle English fixen, from Old English fyxe, from Proto-West Germanic *fuhsini, from Proto-Germanic *fuhsinī; the voiced v- comes from the Southern dialectal forms of Middle English.

• IPA: /ˈvɪk.sən/

vixen (plural vixens)

1. A female fox.

   Synonyms: she-fox, foxess

2. A malicious, quarrelsome or temperamental woman.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:shrew

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC ↗:

     He was prudent and industrious, and so good a husbandman, that he might have led a very easy and comfortable life, had not an arrant vixen of a wife soured his domestic quiet.

3. (colloquial) A racy or salacious woman who is sexually attractive.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:promiscuous woman, Thesaurus:vamp

4. (colloquial) A wife who has sex with other men with her husband's consent.
   • 2018, ‘Stag’ men love watching other guys have sex with their wives… but it’s not cuckolding ↗

     The stag gets a thrill from watching his vixen have sex with another man.

• French: renarde
• German: Füchsin, Fähe
• Italian: volpina
• Portuguese: raposa
• Russian: лиси́ца
• Spanish: zorra, vulpécula, vulpeja

• French: chipie, garce, salope, rosse
• German: Schlampe, Drachen, Zicke
• Italian: stronza, troia
• Portuguese: megera
• Russian: су́ка

First attested in the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”.

1. The fourth reindeer of Santa Claus.

• French: Fringant
• Italian: Guizzo
• Portuguese: Raposa
• Spanish: Juguetón, Bromista, Travieso