The figurative usage established later, mid-19th century as shown by the Phrase Finder : A vicious circle was the name given by 18th century logicians for a fallacious proof in this form: This was alluded to in Edition 3 of The Encyclopedia Britannica, in 1792: A wider use of the expression was taken up by the medical profession and there are several examples from the early 19th century of it being used to describe conditions where one symptom affects another and the health of the patient steadily deteriorates. vicious circle n noun: Refers to person, place, thing, quality, etc. The figurative, that is, not specifically logical or medical, meaning became established in the middle of the century; for example, this piece from Henry James' Notebooks, 1892: "The whole situation works in a kind of inevitable rotary way - in what would be called a vicious circle.". Is it my fitness level or my single-speed bicycle? Further, as we examine how agreements/compacts were actually made, we realize that there a kind of vicious circle between "coercion" and "voluntary will". Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. have entries for only “vicious circle,”, @Jacinto: Thank you for pointing that instance out. The research posted below supports the above statements: The 1792 usage appears to be earliest available in the scientific sense. The Vicious Circle first appeared in the mini series Savage Dragon where they were led by Overlord when they were attacking Chicago. This expression comes from the French cercle vicieux , which in philosophy … Because it is rather late to the party of everyday English "vicious cycle" doesn't show up in the works of early commentators who focused on correcting what they considered errors in usage. But eighteen years later, Bryan Garner, Garner's Modern American Usage, second edition (2003) accepts "vicious cycle" as legitimate alternative to "vicious cycle": vicious circle; vicious cycle. By extension, the phrase “vicious circle” was used in the 1700s for an argument that circles back on itself because its premise is flawed (usually the premise is used to justify the conclusion, which in turn is used to justify the premise). The term vicious circle is commonly used to describe a situation in which solution of one problem creates other problems whose solution is incompatible with the original circumstances. Another will pander to the cry for the sake of office. The principle states that no object or property may be introduced by a definition that depends on that object or property itself. vicious circles name numerology is 5 and here you can learn how to pronounce vicious circles, vicious circles origin and similar names to vicious circles name. What is the difference between 'man' and 'human'? Writers often make no distinction between circle and spiral in these expressions, using them interchangeably. Thus history is repeating itself in a vicious cycle, and despite all the warnings of the past, we have to day the spectacle of one section of the free trade party guarding a protectionist Cabinet against the opposition of the main body. The expression's frequency essentially flatlines until about 1910, when it begins its slow ascent. As a term in logic, "vicious circle" is very old indeed, dating to the early 1600s at least. Can I assign any static IP address to a device on my network? Idiom of the Day 🙋. Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. The Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t list “vicious cycle” as a variant, though it includes the phrase in a couple of 20th-century citations. As with the original sense of "vicious circle," the sense of vicious" here seems to be "fundamentally flawed" or "ill-reasoned," not "wicked" or "deplorable" or "reprehensible.". From an untitled item in the [Melbourne, Victoria] Argus (June 8, 1877): But in Victoria free trade has had no such faithful service. Meaning of Vicious Circle. Here, at greater length, is that occurrence, from the entry for "Lightning" in the 1798 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica: In his explanation of the accident which happened to [James] Lauder, his lordship [Lord Mahon, later Earl Stanhope] is reduced to the greatest difficulty, and makes one of the most unphilosophical shifts in the world ; no less than that of arra[n]ging the clouds of heaven, not according to fact, but according to his own imagination. From the Cambridge English Corpus There is a … Back in the 1700s, logicians coined the term “vicious circle” to illustrate a kind of circular argument. What does vicious circle expression mean? 9 February 1999. Thanks for contributing an answer to English Language & Usage Stack Exchange! It is called a circle because it has no real starting place—and, one might add, because there's no end to this sort of thing.. If I knock down this building, how many other buildings do I knock down as well? Meaning "inclined to be savage or dangerous" is first recorded 1711 (originally of animals, especially horses); that of "full of spite, bitter, severe" is from 1825. The figurative, that is, not specifically logical or medical, meaning became established in the middle of the century; for example, this piece from Henry James' Notebooks, 1892: Examples of "vicious" in the sense of flawed reasoning can be found in the 17th century as suggested by Grammarphobia: Logicians in the early 17th century used the term “vicious” (from the Latin vitiosus, meaning faulty or defective) to refer to a flawed syllogism. site design / logo © 2021 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under cc by-sa. Maybe it's an Americanism. Most efficient and feasible non-rocket spacelaunch methods moving into the future? Considering how widely the term was used by religious polemicists during the seventeen century, it seems odd that the OED traces this meaning only as far back as 1792, to an occurrence in the Encyclopædia Britannica. The Vicious Circle members were then all locked away. Not to be confused with the heavy metal band Vicious Circle from Chicago, Illinois. After Powerhouse took Brainiape back to the Vicious Circle’s new headquarters, he had him healed. and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) Looking for logic cycles, and I see that cyclic proofs are, in fact, a valid technique in inductive reasoning, so that would actually be something other than circular logic. Once the sense of "vicious circle" became more widely associated with "a recurring sequence of bad events," the variant "vicious cycle" gained a following because such a recurring sequence seems at least as cyclical as it is circular. The Vicious Circle plans. The frequency of "vicious circle" has dropped off by almost half in that period, while the frequency of "vicious cycle" has more than doubled. As a result, "vicious circle" was only slightly more frequent than "vicious cycle" in works published in 2005. The converse to 'vicious circle' is 'virtuous circle', referring to a process of positive feedback. The next instance of "vicious cycle" that I found was much later, however. For that year in which JERUSALEM was taken and destroyed, he saith, the Passover was on the 14th day of the month XANTICUS, which according to JOSEPHUS is our APRIL ; and that five years before, it fell on the 8th day of the same month. @Josh, not sure what POB is ("pat on the back"?). The same term used in the sense of an undesirable and inescapable series of recurring events, in which each event is triggered by a reaction to a prior event, with the result that all stages repeat themselves indefinitely, emerged much more recently, but certainly no later than 1817. This is confirmed also by two instances, recorded by him, which totally overthrow the hypothesis of the JEWS using a vicious cycle. Why is changing data types not effecting the database size? The screenplay concerns a leading Harley Street specialist who is forced to work with the police to nail a gang of international criminals, after being falsely accused of murder. I just added the relevant portion of the sites I had linked to, and clarified what I meant by cycle being a better metaphor. Biography. Need antonyms for vicious circle? This has been used most often in reference to economics; for example, this piece in The Syracuse Herald in March 1916, headed The Vicious Spiral: "... we keep on putting up prices, raising wages Vicious circle is about 40% more common than vicious cycle in modern print sources. The Wordwizard cites an early usage of vicious circle in the sense of a situation in which action and reaction intensify each other from 1838: The earliest example of VICIOUS CIRCLE (in sense cited above) that I was able to find was from 1838 (see quote below), which predates the OED’s 1839 offering (see quote below) by a ‘big’ one year – that was a thrill. Idiom: a vicious circle Meaning Idiom: a vicious circle / cycle. We might even be able to replace what has been termed the vicious circle with the virtuous circle. Logic A fallacy in reasoning in which the premise is used to prove the conclusion, and the conclusion used to prove the premise. The term 'vicious spiral' was later coined in the USA to denote a similar process but one which, after proceeding around the loop, ends in a worse position than before. And vicious circle is the phrase with the stronger precedent to support it. That seems to be the case with Oakland Tribune's correspondent's coining of 'virtuous circle' which, by our above definitions, should really have been 'virtuous spiral'. a vicious circle. It is one of the most popular of all fallacies, the darling of the pompously ignorant. William Morris & Mary Morris, Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage, second edition (1985) does include an entry on the two terms but seems to have little use for "vicious cycle": vicious circle/vicious cycle While vicious cycle may seem an amusing play on words, vicious circle is the proper idiom for a situation in which the solution to one problem creates new problems which in turn bring back the original problem and make it more difficult to solve. 2 The Valetudinary States at the Origin of a Semiotic of Impulses 15 3 The Experience of the Eternal Return 55 4 The Valetudinary States at the Origin of Four Criteria: Decadence, Vigour, Gregariousness, the Singular Case 74 5 Attempt at a Scientific Explanation of the Eternal Return 93 6 The Vicious Circle as a Selective Doctrine 121 The vicious circle principle is a principle that was endorsed by many predicativist mathematicians in the early 20th century to prevent contradictions. Is the bullet train in China typically cheaper than taking a domestic flight? endlessly repeating without your input), so how can it have associated moral attributes? Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers. A third will deliberately sell his cause. the earliest example that I could find for VICIOUS CYCLE was from 1858 (see quote below), in agreement with my speculation in one of my earlier posts that VICIOUS CIRCLE was the older term. In any use but as a term in logic the expression is now a cliché. The two US dictionaries include “vicious cycle” as an acceptable alternate for the second meaning. Vicious in this context means impaired or spoiled by a fault. Wow, Learning something new, here. A vicious circle is a problem or difficult situation that has the effect of creating new problems which then cause the original problem or situation to occur again. How was the Candidate chosen for 1927, and why not sooner? 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