Definition
In modern criminal law and law enforcement usage, "vic" is informal shorthand for victim, most commonly a victim of homicide. The term appears in police reports, prosecutorial files, investigative records, and case documentation where brevity is standard. It is not a term of art with a formal legal definition but functions as a practical identifier in criminal case materials.
In some older usage, particularly in ecclesiastical and Roman law contexts, "vic" appears as an abbreviation for vicarius (deputy or substitute), a usage distinct from the modern criminal law sense.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A victim of a homicide.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): No entry. The abbreviation was not standard in general English dictionaries of that period.
The gap between common and legal usage here is narrow but worth noting: in ordinary speech, "vic" may refer informally to any victim of any harm. In criminal law practice and law enforcement documentation, the term is used with greater precision, typically designating the deceased in a homicide investigation or, more broadly, the named complaining witness or injured party in a criminal matter.
Common Confusion
"Vic" as victim should not be confused with its appearance in older legal sources as an abbreviation for vicarius or for titles derived from the Latin via and vic- root words. Burrill's Law Dictionary entries near this term address viator (traveler, foot passenger) and viscount (a title of nobility, still used for the sheriff in the Royal Court of Jersey), neither of which has any relationship to the modern criminal law usage. Researchers encountering "vic." as an abbreviation in historical legal texts should treat it as likely referencing a Latin-derived term rather than victim.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with modern criminal case files, police reports, grand jury transcripts, or prosecutorial memoranda will encounter "vic" routinely as informal shorthand. Its meaning in those contexts is stable and unambiguous.
The danger arises in historical research. In older legal dictionaries, treatises, and Roman law materials, abbreviations using "vic-" point toward an entirely different lexical family: vicarius (deputy), via (road, way), viator (traveler, summoner), and viscount (from vicecomes). Burrill's Dictionary, for example, treats entries in this range as addressing Roman legal officials and English titles of nobility — not victims of crime. A researcher searching historical sources for "vic" expecting victim-related doctrine will find nothing useful and may be misled by superficially similar headwords.
For victims' rights research specifically, the operative terms in historical legal sources are "injured party," "complainant," "prosecutor" (in its older English sense of private accuser), and "partie civile" in civil law jurisdictions. The concept of the crime victim as a rights-bearing participant in criminal proceedings is largely a late twentieth-century development; historical sources will not reflect modern victims' rights frameworks under this abbreviation or near equivalents.
Corpus researchers should also note that "vic" does not appear as a defined term in any major historical law dictionary in the modern sense. Its presence in legal research databases will be overwhelmingly confined to twentieth- and twenty-first-century materials.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary does not define "vic" as victim. The entries in Burrill proximate to this term address viator (a traveler or foot passenger in Roman law, whose office included summoning senators from the country) and viscount (a title of nobility derived from vicecomes, still used for the sheriff in the Royal Court of the Island of Jersey as of Burrill's time, citing 7 Ad. & Ell. (N.S.) 989, 1002). Neither entry has any bearing on the modern criminal law usage. No other major historical law dictionary — Black's, Bouvier's, or Tomlin's — defines "vic" as an independent term. The modern usage is a product of law enforcement and prosecutorial practice, not doctrinal legal development.
Jurisdictional Note
The informal usage of "vic" to mean victim is widespread in American criminal law practice and law enforcement. It appears across jurisdictions without meaningful variation in meaning, though it remains informal and will not be found in statutory definitions or model codes.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Homicide
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Victims' Rights