vig⋅il
[vij-uh
l] 
| 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. |
| 4. | Ecclesiastical.
|
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 -y 3
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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| vig·il (vĭj'əl) n.
[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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Vigil
Vig"il\, n. [OE. vigile, L. vigilia, from vigil awake, watchful, probably akin to E. wake: cf. F. vigile. See Wake, v. i., and cf. Reveille, Surveillance, Vedette, Vegetable, Vigor.]1. Abstinence from sleep, whether at a time when sleep is customary or not; the act of keeping awake, or the state of being awake, or the state of being awake; sleeplessness; wakefulness; watch. "Worn out by the labors and vigils of many months." --Macaulay. Nothing wears out a fine face like the vigils of the card table and those cutting passions which attend them. --Addison. 2. Hence, devotional watching; waking for prayer, or other religious exercises. So they in heaven their odes and vigils tuned. --Milton. Be sober and keep vigil, The Judge is at the gate. --Neale (Rhythm of St. Bernard). 3. (Eccl.) (a) Originally, the watch kept on the night before a feast. (b) Later, the day and the night preceding a feast. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors, And say, "To-morrow is St. Crispian." --Shak. (c) A religious service performed in the evening preceding a feast. Vigils, or Watchings, of flowers (Bot.), a peculiar faculty belonging to the flowers of certain plants of opening and closing their petals as certain hours of the day. [R.]Cite This Source
vigil
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vigil
watch or vigil held over the body of a dead person before burial and sometimes accompanied by festivity; also, in England, a vigil kept in commemoration of the dedication of the parish church. The latter type of wake consisted of an all-night service of prayer and meditation in the church. These services, officially termed Vigiliae by the church, appear to have existed from the earliest days of Anglo-Saxon Christianity. Each parish kept the morrow of its vigil as a holiday. Wakes soon degenerated into fairs; people from neighbouring parishes journeyed over to join in the merrymaking, and the revelry and drunkenness became a scandal. The days usually chosen for church dedications being Sundays and saints' days, the abuse seemed all the more scandalous. In 1445 Henry VI attempted to suppress markets and fairs on Sundays and holy days
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