vicissitude Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a variation in circumstances or fortune at different times in your life or in the development of something
    • the project was subject to the usual vicissitudes of exploratory research
  2. noun mutability in life or nature (especially successive alternation from one condition to another)

WordNet

Vi*cis"si*tude noun
Etymology
L. vicissitudo, fr. vicis change, turn: cf. F. vicissitude. See Vicarious.
Definitions
  1. Regular change or succession from one thing to another; alternation; mutual succession; interchange.
    God made two great lights . . . To illuminate the earth and rule the day In their vicissitude, and rule the night. Milton.
  2. Irregular change; revolution; mutation.
    This man had, after many vicissitudes of fortune, sunk at last into abject and hopeless poverty. Macaulay.

Webster 1913