vixen

Origin

Alteration of earlier fixen, from Middle English fixen, fixene, from Old English *fyxen (compare also Old English fyxe (“female fox”)), from Proto-West Germanic *fuhsini, from Proto-Germanic *fuhsinī; the voiced v- comes from the Southern dialectal forms of Middle English. Alternatively, from the Old English adjective fyxen (“of the fox”), as in the phrase fixen hȳd (“fox skin”; compare Middle English foxen fox).