vice

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /vaɪs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪs
• Homophone: vise

From Middle English vice, from Old French vice, from Latin vitium (“fault or blemish”). Displaced native Old English unþēaw.

vice (plural vices)

1. Bad or immoral behaviour.

   Pride is a vice, not a virtue.

   Smoking was a vice Sally picked up in high school.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Noveria:

     Shepard: I wear a lot of hats, Mr. Vargas. Some days I shut down criminals. Some days I defuse nukes. Some days I like to enjoy private vices. You understand me?

   • 2015, Slayer (lyrics and music), “Vices”:

     It's a rush you can't deny / A little violence is the ultimate drug / Let's get high / You've been powerless to your vices / Self-control defies you

   • 2022 October 21, Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff, “Anti-Hero”, in Midnights‎, performed by Taylor Swift:

     I should not be left to my own devices / they come with prices and vices / I end up in crisis / Tale as old as time

2. (law) Any of various crimes related (depending on jurisdiction) to weapons, prostitution, pornography, gambling, alcohol, tobacco, or drugs.
3. (law enforcement, slang) Clipping of vice squad.
4. A defect in the temper or behaviour of a horse, such as to make the animal dangerous, to injure its health, or to diminish its usefulness.
   • 1839, Scholefield v. Robb; cited in Gilligan, Brenda, Practical Horse Law‎, 2002, →ISBN:

     So a horse with say, navicular disease, making him suitable only for light hacking, would probably be unsound, whereas rearing would be a vice, being a "defect in the temper... making it dangerous". A vice can however render a horse unsound - possibly a crib biter will damage its wind.

• (antonym(s) of “bad habit”): virtue

• by vice of
• inherent vice
• stable vice
• vice clause
• vice girl
• vice squad

• habit

See vise.

vice (plural vices)

1. (UK) Alternative spelling of vise (“mechanical screw apparatus used for clamping”)
2. A tool for drawing lead into cames, or flat grooved rods, for casements.
3. (architecture) A winding or spiral staircase.
4. (obsolete) A grip or grasp.
   • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], page 79, line 22:

     Fang. If I but fiſt him once: if he come but within my Vice.

vice (third-person singular simple present vices, present participle vicing, simple past and past participle viced)

1. Alternative spelling of vise (“to hold or squeeze with a vice”)
   • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 281, line 416:

     Camillo. As he had ſeen’t, or beene an Instrument / To vice you to't, that you haue toucht his Queene / Forbiddenly.

   • 1849 December, Thomas De Quincey, “The English Mail-coach. Section the Second.—The Vision of Sudden Death.”, in Miscellanies (De Quincey’s Works; IV), London: James Hogg & Sons, →OCLC, page 335:

     What could be done—who was it that could do it—to check the storm-flight of these maniacal horses? Could I not seize the reins from the slumbering coachman? […] [F]rom the way in which the coachman's hand was viced between his upper and lower thigh, this was impossible.

From Latin vice (“in place of”), ablative form of vicis. Compare French fois (“time”) and Spanish vez (“time, turn”).

vice (not comparable)

1. in place of; subordinate to; designating a person below another in rank

   vice president

   vice admiral

vice

1. (dated) instead of, in place of, versus (sense 2)
   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter XXI, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume I, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849, →OCLC:

     He was gardener and out-door man, vice Upton, resigned.

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter XXVIII, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume I, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849, →OCLC:

     A very small cab-boy, vice Stoopid retired, swung on behind Foker's vehicle; knock-kneed and in the tightest leather breeches.

• While rare in modern standard English, this usage still appears among members of the United States military. This usage is common in informal rail transport contexts in the United Kingdom.
• Statements such as "vice Jones, who had resigned" may be abbreviated "vice Jones, resigned"

vice (plural vices)

1. One who acts in place of a superior.
   • c. 1850s-1870s, Edward Minister and Son, The Gazette of Fashion and Cutting-Room Companion

     The health of the Vice was proposed in appropriate language; in replying, Mr. Marriott thanked the company […]

• vice on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• ICEV, cive

vice

1. in rows

• vico

Inherited from Middle French vice, from Old French vice, borrowed from Latin vitium.

• IPA^(key): /vis/

• Audio

  (file)

• Homophones: vis, visse, vissent, visses
• Rhymes: -is

vice m (plural vices)

1. vice (bad habit)

• défaut
• péché

• “vice”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Borrowed from English vice-, French vice-, German vize-, Italian vice-, Russian ви́це- (více-), Spanish vice-.

• IPA^(key): /ˈvi.t͡se/

vice

1. instead, instead of

• Progreso III (in Ido), 1910–1911, page 102
• Progreso IV (in Ido), 1911–1912, page 211, 408, 409
• Progreso V (in Ido), 1912–1913, page 723
• Progreso VII (in Ido), 1914, page 130

From Latin vicem.

• IPA^(key): /ˈvi.t͡ʃe/
• Rhymes: -itʃe
• Hyphenation: vì‧ce

vice m or f by sense (invariable)

1. deputy, substitute, vice

• vicepresidente
• vice-

• cive, civè, veci

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈu̯i.ke/, [ˈu̯ɪkɛ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈvi.t͡ʃe/, [ˈviːt͡ʃe]

vice

1. ablative singular of vicis

vice

1. in place of, subordinate to

   vice alicuius fungor ― I deputise for someone

• vice versā

• English: vice-
• French: vice
• German: vize-
• Ido: vice
• Italian: vice
• Piedmontese: vice
• Swedish: vice

vīce

1. vocative singular of vīcus

• “vice”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “vice”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Dizionario Latino, Olivetti
• vice in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

• vyce, vyse, vijs, wise, vise, wyce, vyhs

Borrowed from Old French vice, visse, from Latin vitium.

• IPA^(key): /ˈviːs(ə)/

vice (plural vices)

1. A fault or imperfection; a negative quality or attribute of something:
   1. A bad habit or tendency that one has; a negative human behaviour.
   2. A mistake; a fault due to deficience in knowledge or reasoning.
   3. (rare) An imperfection or blemish in one's visage or look.
2. Vice, iniquity, sinful behaviour; absence of virtue or morality:
   1. A vice; a general tendency or action that is morally bad.
   2. A specific example of immoral or sinful behaviour.
3. A sickness, disease or malady; a deleterious process effecting something.

• viciate
• vicious
• viciously
• viciousnesse

• English: vice
• Scots: vice

• “vīce, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-03-01.

From Old French vice, borrowed from Latin vitium.

vice m (plural vices)

1. vice (bad habit)

• French: vice

vice m or f by sense (plural vices)

1. used as an abbreviation of any word containing the prefix vice-

• IPA^(key): /ʋìːt͡sɛ/, /ʋíːt͡sɛ/

vīce f pl

1. purgatory

vice m or f by sense (plural vice)

1. vice (second in command)

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  (file)

vice (not comparable)

1. vice, second in rank, deputy, stand-in, acting

• vicedirektör
• vicekonung
• vicepresident
• vicevärd
• vice versa

From Middle English voys, from Anglo-Norman voiz, voys, veys, from Latin vōx.

• IPA^(key): /viːs/

vice

1. voice

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 75