vitious

The people of condition here speak both languages equally well; or, rather, equally ill; for they use a low, uncouth phraseology; and their pronunciation is extremely vitious.

Travels through France and Italy 2004

The implements of popish superstition; such as relicks of pretended saints, ill-proportioned spires and bellfreys, and the nauseous repetition of the figure of the cross, which is in itself a very mean and disagreeable object, only fit for the prisons of condemned criminals, have contributed to introduce a vitious taste into the external architecture, as well as in the internal ornaments of our temples.

Travels through France and Italy 2004

Some there are again, who entertain scruples of a different kind, and turn from a play because it is a fiction; while there are others, and they are most worthy of argument, who think that theatres add more than their share to the aggregate mass of luxury, voluptuousness, and dissipation, which brings nations to vitious refinement, enervation and decay.

The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor Volume I, Number 1

God to open up the mouth of Baalames awin asse, to cry out againest the vitious lyves of the clergie of that aige.

The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) John Knox

Every plaudit which a vitious play, or a bad actor receives is a blow to the public morals, and the public taste.

The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor Volume I, Number 1

Sometimes indeed one vitious purpose occasions the detection of another, and family disgrace is revealed to pave the way to a divorce, with a view to another marriage, and perhaps to another divorce.

The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor Volume I, Number 1

_After the death_, &c. 172, l. 3. _or_ else it _should cost life for life_; and that in a short time they should be like hogs kept for slaughter, by this vitious

The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) John Knox

Bvt before there had bene yet any precise obseruation made of figuratiue speeches, the first learned artificers of language considered that the bewtie and good grace of vtterance rested in no many pointes: and whatsoeuer transgressed those lymits, they counted it for vitious; and thereupon did set downe a manner of regiment in all speech generally to be obserued, consisting in sixe pointes.

The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

Euripides, which was instantly censured for the introduction of a vitious sentiment in favour of riches.

The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor Volume I, Number 3

Heroic Poem; and the great Art of Thought and Expression lies in this, that they be natural and proper without Meanness, and sublime without a vitious Swelling and Affectation.

Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) Samuel Wesley