Library / English Dictionary

VICE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A specific form of evildoing

Example:

vice offends the moral standards of the community

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("vice" is a kind of...):

evildoing; transgression (the act of transgressing; the violation of a law or a duty or moral principle)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "vice"):

gambling; gaming; play (the act of playing for stakes in the hope of winning (including the payment of a price for a chance to win a prize))

intemperance; intemperateness (consumption of alcoholic drinks)

Derivation:

vicious (having the nature of vice)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Moral weakness

Synonyms:

frailty; vice

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("vice" is a kind of...):

evil; evilness (the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice)

Credits

 Context examples: 

And it would be hard indeed, if so remote a prince’s notions of virtue and vice were to be offered as a standard for all mankind.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

You fling me back on lust for a passion—vice for an occupation?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Multiple point mutations in a DNA sequence from eukaryotic or prokaryotic organisms in which each mutation occurs by substitution of a purine base for a pyrimidine base or vice versa.

(Multiple Transversion Abnormalities, NCI Thesaurus)

The youth moved in the best society—had, so far as was known, no enemies and no particular vices.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He is full of spirits, playful as can be, but there is no vice in him.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Let us thank God if we have outgrown their vices.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was an encouragement of vice; and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should very strenuously have opposed it.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

The principle of "planetary defense," aimed at preventing the contamination of Earth by alien organisms and vice versa, is used by international space agencies during all interplanetary missions.

(Mutated Terrestrial Bacteria That Return from Space Pose Threat to Life on Earth, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Strong, fearless, and energetic, he had sufficient virtue to enable him to impose his odious vices upon a cowering people for ten or twelve years.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Might some of us, more than others, harbor Neanderthal-derived gene variants that may bias our brains toward trading sociability for visuospatial prowess – or vice versa?

(“Residual echo” of ancient humans in scans may hold clues to mental disorders, National Institutes of Health)