a. [f. L. vicāri-us adj. and sb., f. vic-is change, turn, stead, office, etc.: see -ARIOUS.]
1. That takes or supplies the place of another thing or person; substituted instead of the proper thing or person.
1637. Gillespie, Eng. Pop. Cerem., III. iv. 56. If I … religiously adore before the Pastor, as the Vicarious Signe of Christ himself.
1664. H. More, Myst. Iniq., 319. The Interreges are necessarily reducible to the Regal Power, being but a vicarious Appendage thereto.
1688. Boyle, Final Causes Nat. Things, II. 70. Gravel and little stones … are often found … in their stomachs, where they prove a vicarious kind of teeth.
1709. T. Robinson, Vind. Mosaick Syst., 29. God … made it [sc. the moon] a vicarious Light to the Sun, to supply its absence in this lower World.
1785. Burke, Sp. Nabob Arcot’s Debts, Wks. 1842, I. 320. These modern flagellants are sure … to whip their own enormities on the vicarious back of every small offender.
1829. I. Taylor, Enthus., vii. 161. Every right-minded and heaven-commissioned minister of religion is … in … a real sense … a vicarious person.
1850. Blackie, Æschylus, II. 68. This, And worse expect, unless some god endure Vicarious thy tortures.
1853. Abp. Thomson, Laws Th., § 30. (ed. 3), 59. The cry or exclamation … would be consciously reproduced to represent or recal the feeling on another occasion; and it then became a word, or vicarious sign.
b. Const. of (something), rare.
1831. Sir W. Hamilton, Discuss. (1852), 404. The University and Colleges are thus neither identical, nor vicarious of each other. Ibid. (1836–7), Metaph., viii. (1870), 131. If the science be able to possess no single name vicarious of its definition.
2. Of punishment, etc.: Endured or suffered by one person in place of another; accomplished or attained by the substitution of some other person, etc., for the actual offender. Freq. in Theol. with reference to the suffering and death of Christ.
1692. Bentley, Boyle Lect., ix. 319. Some means of Reconciliation must be contrived; some vicarious satisfaction to Justice.
1698. Norris, Pract. Disc. (1707), IV. 137. But as Precious as it was, it was not the very thing that the Law required, but a Vicarious Punishment.
1736. Butler, Anal. Relig., II. v. 211. Vicarious Punishments may be … absolutely necessary.
1781. Johnson, in Boswell, 3 June. Whatever difficulty there may be in the conception of vicarious punishments.
1836. J. Gilbert, Chr. Atonem., iii. (1852), 80. The Christian doctrine of vicarious expiation.
1850. Blackie, Æschylus, II. 319. The idea of vicarious sacrifice, or punishment by substitution,… does not seem to have been very familiar to the Greek mind.
1860. Pusey, Min. Proph., 12. The manifold harvest, which He … should bring forth … by His vicarious Death.
1883. Gilmour, Mongols, xvii. 202. Vicarious suffering too seems strange to them, their own system teaching that for his sin a man must suffer, and there is no escape.
3. Of power, authority, etc.: Exercised by one person, or body of persons, as the representative or deputy of another.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Vicarious, belonging to a Vicar, subordinate; as A Vicarious Power.
1777. Johnson, in Boswell (1904), I. 126. I shall be considered as exercising a kind of vicarious jurisdiction.
1807. J. Barlow, Columb., I. 5. Who sway’d a moment, with vicarious power, Iberia’s sceptre.
1844. H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, III. 285. Such vicarious powers were conferred upon His Majesty’s Courts at all the Indian Presidencies.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., III. 487. He had … held, during some months, a vicarious primacy.
transf. 1835–6. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., I. 322/1. Redi’s opinion, that the pebbles [swallowed by birds] perform the vicarious office of teeth.
4. Performed or achieved by means of another, or by one person, etc., on behalf of another.
1806. Fellowes, trans. Milton’s 2nd Defence, Wks. VI. 377. He had not the courage … to prefix a dedication to Charles without the vicarious aid of Flaccus.
1822. Lamb, Elia, I. Bachelor’s Complaint. I must protest against the vicarious gluttony of Cerasia, who … sent away a dish of Morellas … to her husband at the other end of the table.
1846. Edin. Rev., LXXXIV. 68. The increasing laxity of the Mussulman world, and the practice of vicarious pilgrimage, have greatly diminished the numbers of the sacred caravans.
1877. Gladstone, Glean. (1879), IV. 347. May we never be subjected to the humiliation of dependence upon vicarious labour.
1894. H. Drummond, Ascent Man, 301. Unconscious of their vicarious service, the butterfly and the bee … carry the fertilizing dust to the waiting stigma.
b. Of qualities, etc.: Possessed by one person but reckoned to the credit of another.
1842. Pusey, Crisis Eng. Ch., 136. To confound … individual duties with vicarious merits.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng. (1858), II. vi. 36. A system … where sin was expiated by the vicarious virtues of other men.
c. Of methods, principles, etc.: Based upon the substitution of one person for another.
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown, II. iii. It may be called the vicarious method; it obtained amongst big fellows of lazy or bullying habits, and consisted simply in making clever boys … do their whole vulgus for them.
1870. J. H. Newman, Gram. Assent, II. x. 400. On this vicarious principle, by which we appropriate to ourselves what others do for us, the whole structure of society is raised.
5. Physiol. Denoting the performance by or through one organ of functions normally discharged by another; substitutive.
1780. Encycl. Brit., VI. 4747. The Vicarious Hæmoptysis.
1822–7. Good, Study Med. (1829), I. 650. With a view of exciting a vicarious action, I opened an issue in one of the arms. Ibid., 668. Where the complaint is strictly idiopathic and uncombined, it has often been found to give way to some local irritation or vicarious drain.
1846. Day, trans. Simon’s Anim. Chem., II. 170. The vicarious action of the skin and lungs.
1877. Foster, Physiol. (1878), 477. Vicarious reflex movements may also be witnessed in mammals.
