DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan

 Vig·il n.
 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; sleeplessness; wakefulness; watch.  “Worn out by the labors and vigils of many months.”
    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 of flowers or Watchings of flowers Bot., a peculiar faculty belonging to the flowers of certain plants of opening and closing their petals at certain hours of the day. [R.]
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