Withouten vice of syllable or letter. --Chaucer.
Mark the vice of the procedure. --Sir W.
Hamilton.
2. 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.
3. 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}.
Note: 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}.
2. A tool for drawing lead into cames, or flat grooved rods,
for casements. [Written also {vise}.]
3. A gripe or grasp. [Obs.] --Shak.
The coachman's hand was viced between his upper and
lower thigh. --De Quincey.
{Vice admiral}. [Cf. F. vice-amiral.]
(a) An officer holding rank next below an admiral. By the
existing laws, the rank of admiral and vice admiral in
the United States Navy will cease at the death of the
present incumbents.
(b) A civil officer, in Great Britain, appointed by the lords
commissioners of the admiralty for exercising admiralty
jurisdiction within their respective districts.
{Vice admiralty}, the office of a vice admiral.
{Vice-admiralty court}, a court with admiralty jurisdiction,
established by authority of Parliament in British
possessions beyond the seas. --Abbott.
{Vice chamberlain}, an officer in court next in rank to the
lord chamberlain. [Eng.]
{Vice chancellor}.
(a) (Law) An officer next in rank to a chancellor.
(b) An officer in a university, chosen to perform certain
duties, as the conferring of degrees, in the absence of
the chancellor.
(c) (R. C. Ch.) The cardinal at the head of the Roman
Chancery.
{Vice consul} [cf. F. vice-consul], a subordinate officer,
authorized to exercise consular functions in some
particular part of a district controlled by a consul.
{Vice king}, one who acts in the place of a king; a viceroy.
{Vice legate} [cf. F. vice-l['e]gat], a legate second in rank
to, or acting in place of, another legate.
{Vice presidency}, the office of vice president.
{Vice president} [cf. F. vice-pr['e]sident], an officer next
in rank below a president.