Shak.
Ungoverned appetite . . . a brutish vice.
Milton.
When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honor is a
private station.
Addison.
3. 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.
This character 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. Nares.
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.
B. Jonson.
Syn. — Crime; sin; iniquity; fault. See Crime.
Vice, n. [See Vise.] 1. (Mech.) A kind of instrument for holding work,
as in filing. Same as Vise.
2. A tool for drawing lead into cames, or flat grooved rods, for
casements. [Written also vise.]