vixen: [15] The only Old English word on record for a ‘female fox’ is fyxe. Fixene first appears in the late Middle English period. It was formed using the suffix -en, denoting ‘female’. This was once quite common – Old English had biren ‘female bear’, for instance, and gyden ‘goddess’ – but it now survives only in vixen. (Its German counterpart, -in, is still a live suffix.) The initial v of vixen comes from southwestern England. => fox
vixen (n.)
Old English *fyxen (implied in adjective fyxan), fem. of fox (see fox (n.) and cognate with Middle High German vühsinne, German füchsin). Solitary English survival of the Germanic feminine suffix -en, -in (also in Old English gyden "goddess;" mynecen "nun," from munuc "monk;" wlyfen "she-wolf," etc.). The figurative sense "ill-tempered woman" is attested from 1570s. The spelling shift from -f- to -v- began late 1500s (see V).
双语例句
1. One morning when a vixen was taking her babies out of the lair, she saw a lioness and her cub.
一天清早,雌狐狸带着她的孩子走出巢穴, 看见了母狮子和她的孩子.
来自《简明英汉词典》
2. With an angelic face and a vixen body nobody can resist her.
拥有天使般的面孔和悍妇般的身材没有可以抵抗她.
来自互联网
3. Winner of G 4 Video Game Vixen for Dressed to Kill even though she hardly wears anything.
G4视频游戏以穿着杀人的胜利者,即使她几乎什么都没穿.
来自互联网
4. Take a look back at the actress'big screen as a heat - packing vixen.
