Vice1, n.
n. [Fr. vice, Pr. vici, vizi, vice, Sp. & Pg. vicio, It. vizio, Lat. vitium.] 1. A defect; a fault; a blemish; an imperfection; as, the vices of a political constitution. Mark the vice of the procedure. Sir W. Hamilton. 2. A moral fault or failing; especially, immoral conduct or habit; 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; unworthy or undesirable custom; wickedness. “By their vices brought to servitude.” Milton. I do confess the vices of my blood. Shak. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honor is a private station. Addison. 3. A character or personage in the old English moralities, or moral dramas, having the name sometimes of one vice, sometimes of another, or of Vice itself. He 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. He was sometimes called Iniquity. How like you the Vice in the play? . . . I would not give a rush for any Vice that has not a wooden dagger to snap at every body he meets. B. Jonson. 4. A person in the habit of acting the part of a Vice in the old moralities. Nares. Syn.—Crime; sin; iniquity; fault. See CRIME.