Vigil - Definitions from Dictionary.com

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Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

vig·il

Audio Help [vij-uh

l] Pronunciation Key

–noun

1.	wakefulness maintained for any reason during the normal hours for sleeping.

2.	a watch or a period of watchful attention maintained at night or at other times: The nurse kept her vigil at the bedside of the dying man.

3.	a period of wakefulness from inability to sleep.

Ecclesiastical.

a.	a devotional watching, or keeping awake, during the customary hours of sleep.

b.	Sometimes, vigils. a nocturnal devotional exercise or service, esp. on the eve before a church festival.

c.	the eve, or day and night, before a church festival, esp. an eve that is a fast.

[Origin: 1200–50; ME vigil(i)e < AF < ML vigilia eve of a holy day, special use of L vigilia watchfulness, equiv. to vigil sentry + -ia -y³

]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Vigil

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American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

vig·il Audio Help (vĭj'əl) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. A watch kept during normal sleeping hours.
2. The act or a period of observing; surveillance.
The eve of a religious festival observed by staying awake as a devotional exercise.
Ritual devotions observed on the eve of a holy day. Often used in the plural.

[Middle English vigile, a devotional watching, from Old French, from Latin vigilia, wakefulness, watch, from vigil, awake; see weg- in Indo-European roots.]

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
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Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
vigil

c.1225, "eve of a religious festival" (an occasion for devotional watching or observance), from Anglo-Fr. and O.Fr. vigile, from L. vigilia "watch, watchfulness," from vigil "watchful, awake," from PIE *wog-/*weg- "be lively or active, be strong" (cf. L. vigere "be lively, thrive," velox "fast, lively," vegere "to enliven;" Skt. vaja- "strength, speed;" O.E. wacan "to wake up, arise," wacian "to be awake;" O.H.G. wahta "watch, vigil"). Meaning "watch kept on a festival eve" is from c.1395; that of "occasion of keeping awake for some purpose" is recorded from 1711.

WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This

vigil
noun
1.	a period of sleeplessness
2.	the rite of staying awake for devotional purposes (especially on the eve of a religious festival)
3.	a purposeful surveillance to guard or observe [syn: watch]

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Vigil

Re*veil"le\, n. [F. r['e]veil, fr. r['e]veiller to awake; pref. re- re- + pref. es- (L. ex) + veiller to awake, watch, L. vigilare to watch. The English form was prob. taken by mistake from the French imper. r['e]veillez,2d pers. pl. See Vigil.] (Mil.) The beat of drum, or bugle blast, about break of day, to give notice that it is time for the soldiers to rise, and for the sentinels to forbear challenging. "Sound a reveille." --Dryden.

For at dawning to assail ye Here no bugles sound reveille. --Sir W. Scott.

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