3. The buffoon of the old English moralities, or moral dramas, having the name sometimes of one vice, sometimes of another, or of Vice itself; — called also Iniquity.
Note: This character was grotesquely dressed in a cap with ass's ears, and was armed with a dagger of lath: one of his chief employments was to make sport with the Devil, leaping on his back, and belaboring him with the dagger of lath till he made him roar. The Devil, however, always carried him off in the end. Nares. How like you the Vice in the play . . . I would not give a rush for a Vice that has not a wooden dagger to snap at everybody. B. Jonson.
Syn.
— Crime; sin; iniquity; fault. See Crime.
VICE
Vice, n. Etym: [See Vise.]
1. (Mech.)
Defn: A kind of instrument for holding work, as in filing. Same as
Vise.
2. A tool for drawing lead into cames, or flat grooved rods, for casements. [Written also vise.]
3. A gripe or grasp. [Obs.] Shak.
VICE
Vice, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Viced; p. pr. & vb. n. Vicing.]
Defn: To hold or squeeze with a vice, or as if with a vice. Shak.
The coachman's hand was viced between his upper and lower thigh. De
Quincey.