vice

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a specific form of evildoing

   vice offends the moral standards of the community

2. 2
   noun

   Bad or immoral behaviour.

   Pride is a vice, not a virtue.

3. 3
   noun

   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.

   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.

4. 4
   noun

   A grip or grasp.

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

5. 5
   verb

   Alternative spelling of vise (“to hold or squeeze with a vice”).

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

6. 6
   adj

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

   vice president

7. 7
   prep

   Instead of; in place of; versus.

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

8. 8
   noun

   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 […]

Etymology

PIE word *dwóh₁ From Middle English vice, from Old French vice, from Latin vitium (“fault or blemish”). Displaced native Old English unþēaw.