vice Meaning, Definition & Usage

noun moral weakness
frailty.
noun a specific form of evildoing
- vice offends the moral standards of the community

F., from L. vitium.

A defect; a fault; an error; a blemish; an imperfection; as, the vices of a political constitution; the vices of a horse.
Withouten vice of syllable or letter. Chaucer.

Mark the vice of the procedure. Sir W. Hamilton.
A moral fault or failing; especially, immoral conduct or habit, as in the indulgence of degrading appetites; customary deviation in a single respect, or in general, from a right standard, implying a defect of natural character, or the result of training and habits; a harmful custom; immorality; depravity; wickedness; as, a life of vice; the vice of intemperance.
I do confess the vices of my blood. Shak.

Ungoverned appetite . . . a brutish vice. Milton.

When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honor is a private station. Addison.
The buffoon of the old English moralities, or moral dramas, having the name sometimes of one vice, sometimes of another, or of Vice itself; -- called also Iniquity. ✍ This character was grotesquely dressed in a cap with ass's ears, and was armed with a dagger of lath: one of his chief employments was to make sport with the Devil, leaping on his back, and belaboring him with the dagger of lath till he made him roar. The Devil, however, always carried him off in the end. Nares.
How like you the Vice in the play? . . . I would not give a rush for a Vice that has not a wooden dagger to snap at everybody. B. Jonson.
Syn. -- Crime; sin; iniquity; fault. See Crime.

See Vise.

(Mech.) A kind of instrument for holding work, as in filing. Same as Vise.
A tool for drawing lead into cames, or flat grooved rods, for casements. Written also vise.
A gripe or grasp. Obs. Shak.

imperfect & past participle Viced ; present participle & verbal noun Vicing

To hold or squeeze with a vice, or as if with a vice. Shak.
The coachman's hand was viced between his upper and lower thigh. De Quincey.

L., abl. of vicis change, turn. See Vicarious.

In the place of; in the stead; as, A. B. was appointed postmaster vice C. D. resigned.

Cf. F. vice-. See Vice, prep.

Denoting one who in certain cases may assume the office or duties of a superior; designating an officer or an office that is second in rank or authority; as, vice president; vice agent; vice consul, etc.