vice

Multiple Entries:
  vice    vice-  

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
vice1 /vʌɪs/

▶noun

• 1 immoral or wicked behaviour.

  ■ criminal activities which involve prostitution, pornography, or drugs.

  ■ an immoral or wicked personal characteristic.

• 2 a weakness of character; a bad habit.

  ■ (also stable vice) a bad or neurotic habit of stabled horses, typically arising from boredom.

– derivatives
viceless adjective.

– origin ME: via OFr. from L. vitium.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
vice2 /vʌɪs/ (US vise)

▶noun a metal tool with movable jaws which are used to hold an object firmly in place while work is done on it.

– derivatives
vice-like adjective.

– origin ME (denoting a screw or winch): from OFr. vis, from L. vitis ‘vine’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
vice3 /ˈvʌɪsi/

▶preposition as a substitute for.

– origin L., ablative of vic- ‘change’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
vice-/vʌɪs/

▶combining form next in rank to (typically denoting capacity to deputize for): vice-president.

– origin from L. vice ‘in place of’.