Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage

Sense: 1-3
Date: 1200-1300
Language: Old French
Origin: Latin vitium 'fault, vice'

vice

 noun
     
Related topics: Crime
vice S3
1 [uncountable]SCC criminal activities that involve sex or drugs:
the fight against vice on the streets
The police have smashed a vice ring (=a group of criminals involved in vice) in Chicago.
 ➔ vice squad
2 [countable] a bad habit:
Smoking is my only vice.
3 [uncountable and countable] a bad or immoral quality in a person, or bad or immoral behaviour [≠ virtue]:
Jealousy is a vice.
to reward virtue and punish vice
vice
4TZ [countable] usually vise American English a tool that holds an object very firmly so that you can work on it:
He held my arm like a vice.
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

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