(initial capital letter)a character in the English morality plays, a personification of general vice or of a particular vice, serving as the buffoon.

Archaic. a physical defect, flaw, or infirmity: In most cases, attempts to relieve the symptoms will be of little avail without at the same time relieving or removing the constitutional vice which has induced this condition.

Show More

Origin of vice1

Synonym study

1. Fault,failing,foible,weakness,vice imply shortcomings or imperfections in a person. Fault is the common word used to refer to any of the average shortcomings of a person; when it is used, condemnation is not necessarily implied: Of his many faults the greatest is vanity.Foible,failing,weakness all tend to excuse the person referred to. Of these foible is the mildest, suggesting a weak point that is slight and often amusing, manifesting itself in eccentricity rather than in wrongdoing: the foibles of artists.Weakness suggests that the person in question is unable to control a particular impulse, and gives way to self-indulgence: a weakness for pretty women.Failing is closely akin to fault, except that it is particularly applied to humanity at large, suggesting common, often venial, shortcomings: Procrastination and making excuses are common failings.Vice (which may also apply to a sin in itself, apart from a person: the vice of gambling ) is the strongest term, and designates a habit that is truly detrimental or evil.

vice

n.1

Horace and Aristotle have already spoken to us about the virtues of their forefathers and the vices of their own times, and through the centuries, authors have talked the same way. If all this were true, we would be bears today. [Montesquieu]

Vice squad is attested from 1905. Vice anglais "corporal punishment," literally "the English vice," is attested from 1942, from French.

Show More

vice

n.2

vise

n.

c.1300, "device like a screw or winch for bending a crossbow or catapult," from Old French vis, viz "screw," from Latin vitis "vine, tendril of a vine," literally "that which winds," from root of viere "to bind, twist" (see withy). The meaning "clamping tool with two jaws closed by a screw" is first recorded c.1500.