vice

noun

1. Bad or immoral behaviour. (Especially often, a habit that harms oneself or others)

   “Pride is a vice, not a virtue.”

   “Smoking was a vice Sally picked up in high school.”

   “Shepard: I wear a lot of hats, Mr. Vargas. Some days I shut down criminals. Some days I defuse nukes. Some days I like to enjoy private vices. You understand me?”

   “It's a rush you can't deny / A little violence is the ultimate drug / Let's get high / You've been powerless to your vices / Self-control defies you”

   “I should not be left to my own devices / they come with prices and vices / I end up in crisis / Tale as old as time”

2. Any of various crimes related (depending on jurisdiction) to weapons, prostitution, pornography, gambling, alcohol, tobacco, or drugs.
3. (abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, slang)Clipping of vice squad.
4. 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.

   “So a horse with say, navicular disease, making him suitable only for light hacking, would probably be unsound, whereas rearing would be a vice, being a "defect in the temper... making it dangerous". A vice can however render a horse unsound - possibly a crib biter will damage its wind.”

5. (Commonwealth, alt-of, alternative)Alternative spelling of vise (“mechanical screw apparatus used for clamping”).
6. A tool for drawing lead into cames, or flat grooved rods, for casements.
7. A winding or spiral staircase.
8. (obsolete)A grip or grasp.

   “Fang. If I but fiſt him once: if he come but within my Vice.”

9. One who acts in place of a superior.

   “c. 1850s-1870s, Edward Minister and Son, The Gazette of Fashion and Cutting-Room Companion The health of the Vice was proposed in appropriate language; in replying, Mr. Marriott thanked the company […]”

verb

1. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative spelling of vise (“to hold or squeeze with a vice”).

   “Camillo. As he had ſeen’t, or beene an Instrument / To vice you to't, that you haue toucht his Queene / Forbiddenly.”

   “What could be done—who was it that could do it—to check the storm-flight of these maniacal horses? Could I not seize the reins from the slumbering coachman? […] [F]rom the way in which the coachman's hand was viced between his upper and lower thigh, this was impossible.”

adj

1. (not-comparable)in place of; subordinate to; designating a person below another in rank

   “vice president”

   “vice admiral”

prep

1. (dated)Instead of; in place of; versus.

   “He was gardener and out-door man, vice Upton, resigned.”

   “A very small cab-boy, vice Stoopid retired, swung on behind Foker's vehicle; knock-kneed and in the tightest leather breeches.”

name

1. A surname.