Beau. & Fl.
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Vil"i*pend (?), v. t. [L. vilipendere; vilis vile + pendere to weigh,
to value: cf. F. vilipender.] To value lightly; to depreciate; to
slight; to despise.
To vilipend the art of portrait painting.
Longfellow.
Vil"i*pend"en*cy (?), n. Disesteem; slight; disparagement. [R.] E.
Waterhouse.
Vil"i*ty (?), n. [L. vilitas: cf. F. vileté, vilité, OF. vilté.]
Vileness; baseness. [Obs.] Kennet.
Vill (?), n. [OF. ville, vile, a village, F. ville a town, city. See
Villa.] A small collection of houses; a village. "Every manor, town, or
vill." Sir M. Hale.
Not should e'er the crested fowl From thorp or vill his matins sound
for me.
Wordsworth.
A word of various significations in English, law; as, a manor; a
tithing; a town; a township; a parish; a part of a parish; a village.
The original meaning of vill, in England, seems to have been derived
from the Roman sense of the term villa, a single country residence or
farm; a manor. Later, the term was applied only to a collection of
houses more than two, and hence came to comprehend towns. Burrill. The
statute of Exeter, 14 Edward I., mentions entire- vills, demivills, and
hamlets.
Vil"la (?), n.; pl. Villas (#). [L. villa, LL. also village, dim. of L.
vicus a village: cf. It. & F. villa. See Vicinity, and cf. Vill,
Village, Villain.] A country seat; a country or suburban residence of
some pretensions to elegance. Dryden. Cowper.
Vil"lage (?; 48), n. [F., fr. L. villaticus belonging to a country
house or villa. See Villa, and cf. Villatic.] A small assemblage of
houses in the country, less than a town or city.
Village cart, a kind of two-wheeled pleasure carriage without a top.
Syn. — Village, Hamlet, Town, City. In England, a hamlet denotes a
collection of houses, too small to have a parish church. A village has
a church, but no market. A town has both a market and a church or
churches. A city is, in the legal sense, an incorporated borough town,
which is, or has been, the place of a bishop's see. In the United
States these distinctions do not hold.
Vil"la*ger (?), n. An inhabitant of a village.
Brutus had rather be a villager Than to repute himself a son of Rome
Under these hard condition.
Shak.
Vil"lage*ry (?), n. Villages; a district of villages. [Obs.] "The
maidens of the villagery." Shak.
Vil"lain (?), n. [OE. vilein, F. vilain, LL. villanus, from villa a
village, L. villa a farm. See Villa.]
1. (Feudal Law) One who holds lands by a base, or servile, tenure, or
in villenage; a feudal tenant of the lowest class, a bondman or
servant. [In this sense written also villan, and villein.]
If any of my ansectors was a tenant, and a servant, and held his lands
as a villain to his lord, his posterity also must do so, though
accidentally they become noble.
Jer. Taylor.
Villains were of two sorts; villains regardant, that is, annexed to the
manor (LL. adscripti glebæ); and villains in gross, that is, annexed to
the person of their lord, and transferable from one to another.
Blackstone.