vigil

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“
For me, the vigil was an extremely powerful experience.

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Definitions (17)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. noun A watch kept during normal sleeping hours.
  2. noun The act or a period of observing; surveillance.
  3. noun The eve of a religious festival observed by staying awake as a devotional exercise.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (9)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

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Examples (50)

  • Less than an hour into their vigil, the word came down the line that someone was moving out front and to the right of their position. —  EQMM,June2007
  • Prayer vigil will be 7 p.m. today at Rix Funeral Chapel. —  The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal:Today's Headlines
  • At the end of the vigil, the balloons were let go, as friends and family members watched. —  News Channel 9: Local News
  • By the time of Thursday's vigil, the boarded up storefront of Flintridge Bookstore and Coffee Shop was the only tell-tale sign of the carnage that ensued when a 10-ton vehicle transport trailer lost its breaks on Angeles Crest Highway, and like an out of control battering ram, took out several cars plus the façade of one of La Cañada's popular bookstores.
  • A few hours and phone calls later, the vigil was set for 7 p.m.
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This word has been looked up 107 times.

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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

strive ·  wandering ·  foreboding ·  watcher ·  sentinel ·  watchfulness ·  toil ·  solitude ·  pilgrimage ·  litany ·  torment ·  refrain
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

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

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Formerly also vigile; from Middle English vigil, vigile, vigilie, from Old French vigile, vigilie, French vigile = Spanish Portuguese Italian vigilia, a watching, vigil, from Latin vigilia, a waking or watching, from vigil, waking, watchful (cf. Anglo-Saxon wacol, watchful), from vigere, be lively: see wake. Hence (from Latin vigil) vigilant, etc.
 

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/ˈvɪdʒɪl/
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