Vicarious
Etymology
From Latin "vicārius," "substitute, deputy, standing in another’s place," from "vicis" ("a turn, a change, a place"). The same root gives us vicar, one who acts in a superior’s stead. The modern sense keeps the idea of substitution: you occupy another’s experience in place of your own.
adjective · /vy-KAIR-ee-us/
Experienced secondhand, through the actions or feelings of another person.
What it names
Feeling something you did not do yourself — vicarious pride in a friend’s success, the vicarious thrill of a novel — where the emotion arrives by way of someone else’s life.
Example
She got a vicarious thrill from her sister’s travel photos, having never left the country herself.
Related idea
Compare empirical: empirical knowledge comes from your own direct observation, whereas vicarious experience reaches you entirely through another person’s.
adjective · /vy-KAIR-ee-us/
In law, borne by one person for the acts of another; done or suffered as a substitute.
What it names
vicarious liability — an employer’s responsibility for an employee’s wrongdoing
Example
The firm was held vicariously liable for its driver’s negligence.
Related idea
The secondhand-experience sense and the legal one share the idea of standing in another’s place — one feels, the other answers, on someone else’s behalf, from Latin “vicarius,” a substitute.