vice

英文词源

vice

vice: Including the prefix vice-, English has three distinct words vice. The oldest, ‘wickedness’ [13], comes via Old French vice from Latin vitium ‘defect, offence’, which also gave English vicious [14], vitiate [16], and vituperate [16]. Vice ‘tool for holding’ [14] was acquired via Old French viz from Latin vītis.

This came to denote ‘vine’ (in which sense it gave English viticulture ‘vine-growing’ [19]), but originally it signified ‘tendril’, and it was this that lay behind the original meanings of English vice: ‘winding staircase’ and ‘screw’. Its modern application began to emerge in the 15th century, and derived from the notion of jaws being opened and closed by means of a ‘screw’.

The prefix vice- [15] comes from Latin vice ‘in place of’, the ablative case of vicis ‘change’ (source of English vicar, vicissitude, etc).
=> vicious, vitiate, vituperate; viticulture

vice (n.1)

"moral fault, wickedness," c. 1300, from Old French vice "fault, failing, defect, irregularity, misdemeanor" (12c.), from Latin vitium "defect, offense, blemish, imperfection," in both physical and moral senses (in Medieval Latin also vicium; source also of Italian vezzo "usage, entertainment"), from PIE *wi-tio-, from root *wei- (3) "vice, fault, guilt."

Horace and Aristotle have already spoken to us about the virtues of their forefathers and the vices of their own times, and through the centuries, authors have talked the same way. If all this were true, we would be bears today. [Montesquieu]

Vice squad "special police unit targeting prostitution, narcotics, gambling, etc.," is attested from 1905, American English. Vice anglais "fetish for corporal punishment," literally "the English vice," is attested from 1942, from French. In Old French, the seven deadly sins were les set vices.

vice (n.2)

"tool for holding," see vise.