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VILE
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Morally reprehensible
Example:
a slimy little liar
Synonyms:
despicable; slimy; ugly; unworthy; vile; worthless; wretched
Classified under:
Similar:
evil (morally bad or wrong)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Causing or able to cause nausea
Example:
a sickening stench
Synonyms:
loathsome; nauseating; nauseous; noisome; offensive; queasy; sickening; vile
Classified under:
Similar:
unwholesome (detrimental to physical or moral well-being)
Derivation:
vileness (the quality of being disgusting to the senses or emotions)
Context examples:
Those vile sea-breezes are the ruin of beauty and health.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
It is the vilest murder-trap on the whole riverside, and I fear that Neville St. Clair has entered it never to leave it more.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children's mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
"It proves," he roared, with a sudden blast of fury, "that you are the damnedest imposter in London—a vile, crawling journalist, who has no more science than he has decency in his composition!"
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
See!—he must have looked at it—one is from you, and to my friend Peter Hawkins; the other—here he caught sight of the strange symbols as he opened the envelope, and the dark look came into his face, and his eyes blazed wickedly—the other is a vile thing, an outrage upon friendship and hospitality!
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Much of his past was unearthed, indeed, and all disreputable: tales came out of the man’s cruelty, at once so callous and violent; of his vile life, of his strange associates, of the hatred that seemed to have surrounded his career; but of his present whereabouts, not a whisper.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
“That comes—as you call it—of being arrant asses,” retorted the doctor, “and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous slough. I think it most probable—though of course it's only an opinion—that you'll all have the deuce to pay before you get that malaria out of your systems. Camp in a bog, would you? Silver, I'm surprised at you. You're less of a fool than many, take you all round; but you don't appear to me to have the rudiments of a notion of the rules of health.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Rest assured of this, that if all else fail I have always a safeguard here—drawing a small silver-hilted poniard from her bosom—which sets me beyond the fear of these vile and blood-stained wretches.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Few things could have been more to their liking than to give him a tow over the side, for to the forecastle he had sent messes and concoctions of the vilest order.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
