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Vice vs. Virtue

Vice and Virtue Definitions

Vice

A practice or habit considered to be evil, degrading, or immoral
The vices of smoking and drinking.

Virtue

Moral excellence and righteousness; goodness.

Vice

Wicked or depraved conduct or habits; corruption
"sharpers, desperadoes, pirates, and criminals steeped in vice" (Carl Holliday).

Virtue

An example or kind of moral excellence
The virtue of patience.

Vice

Prostitution, the sale of illegal drugs, and certain other forms of usually nonviolent criminal behavior.

Virtue

(Archaic) Chastity, especially in a woman.
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Vice

A slight personal failing; a foible
The vice of untidiness.

Virtue

A particularly efficacious, good, or beneficial quality; advantage
A plan with the virtue of being practical.

Vice

A flaw or imperfection; a defect
"Lady Hester remarked on the vice in his looks" (Edna O'Brien).

Virtue

Effective force or power
Believed in the virtue of prayer.

Vice

Vice A character representing generalized or particular vice in English morality plays.

Virtue

Virtues(Christianity) The fifth of the nine orders of angels in medieval angelology.
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Vice

A jester or buffoon.

Virtue

(Obsolete) Manly courage; valor.

Vice

Variant of vise.

Virtue

(uncountable) Accordance with moral principles; conformity of behaviour or thought with the strictures of morality; good moral conduct.
Without virtue, there is no freedom.

Vice

In place of; replacing
Ms. Fine acted as treasurer, vice Mr. Smith.

Virtue

A particular manifestation of moral excellence in a person; an admirable quality.
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Vice

A bad habit.
Pride is a vice, not a virtue.
Smoking was a vice Sally picked up in high school.

Virtue

Specifically, each of several qualities held to be particularly important, including the four cardinal virtues, the three theological virtues, or the seven virtues opposed to the seven deadly sins.

Vice

(legal) Any of various crimes related (depending on jurisdiction) to weapons, prostitution, pornography, gambling, alcohol, tobacco, or drugs.

Virtue

An inherently advantageous or excellent quality of something or someone; a favourable point, an advantage.

Vice

Clip of vice squad

Virtue

A creature embodying divine power, specifically one of the orders of heavenly beings, traditionally ranked above angels and below archangels.

Vice

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.

Virtue

(uncountable) Specifically, moral conduct in sexual behaviour, especially of women; chastity.

Vice

(UK) vise

Virtue

(obsolete) The inherent power of a god, or other supernatural being.

Vice

A tool for drawing lead into cames, or flat grooved rods, for casements.

Virtue

The inherent power or efficacy of something now only in phrases.

Vice

(architecture) A winding or spiral staircase.

Virtue

Manly strength or courage; bravery; daring; spirit; valor.
Built too strongFor force or virtue ever to expugn.

Vice

(obsolete) A grip or grasp.

Virtue

Active quality or power; capacity or power adequate to the production of a given effect; energy; strength; potency; efficacy; as, the virtue of a medicine.
Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about.
A man was driven to depend for his security against misunderstanding, upon the pure virtue of his syntax.
The virtue of his midnight agony.

Vice

One who acts in place of a superior.

Virtue

Energy or influence operating without contact of the material or sensible substance.
She moves the body which she doth possess,Yet no part toucheth, but by virtue's touch.

Vice

Alternative spelling of vise

Virtue

Excellence; value; merit; meritoriousness; worth.
I made virtue of necessity.
In the Greek poets, . . . the economy of poems is better observed than in Terence, who thought the sole grace and virtue of their fable the sticking in of sentences.

Vice

In place of; subordinate to; designating a person below another in rank
Vice president
Vice admiral

Virtue

Specifically, moral excellence; integrity of character; purity of soul; performance of duty.
Virtue only makes our bliss below.
If there's Power above us,And that there is all nature cries aloudThrough all her works, he must delight in virtue.

Vice

(dated) instead of, in place of, versus (sense 2)

Virtue

A particular moral excellence; as, the virtue of temperance, of charity, etc.

Vice

A defect; a fault; an error; a blemish; an imperfection; as, the vices of a political constitution; the vices of a horse.
Withouten vice of syllable or letter.
Mark the vice of the procedure.

Virtue

Specifically: Chastity; purity; especially, the chastity of women; virginity.
H. I believe the girl has virtue.M. And if she has, I should be the last man in the world to attempt to corrupt it.

Vice

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.
Ungoverned appetite . . . a brutish vice.
When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,The post of honor is a private station.

Virtue

One of the orders of the celestial hierarchy.
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.

Vice

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.
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.

Virtue

The quality of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong

Vice

A kind of instrument for holding work, as in filing. Same as Vise.

Virtue

Any admirable quality or attribute;
Work of great merit

Vice

A tool for drawing lead into cames, or flat grooved rods, for casements.

Virtue

Morality with respect to sexual relations

Vice

A gripe or grasp.

Virtue

A particular moral excellence

Vice

To hold or squeeze with a vice, or as if with a vice.
The coachman's hand was viced between his upper and lower thigh.

Vice

In the place of; in the stead; as, A. B. was appointed postmaster vice C. D. resigned.

Vice

Denoting one who in certain cases may assume the office or duties of a superior; designating an officer or an office that is second in rank or authority; as, vice president; vice agent; vice consul, etc.

Vice

Moral weakness

Vice

A specific form of evildoing;
Vice offends the moral standards of the community

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