Word.ws English Dictionary

vigil

/ˈvɪd͡ʒəl/

vigil noun: an instance of keeping awake during normal sleeping hours, especially to keep watch or pray.

Noun

vigil (plural vigils)

  1. An instance of keeping awake during normal sleeping hours, especially to keep watch or pray.
    • I saw her head drooped upon her hand; her whole attitude expressing that profound depression, whose lonely vigil wastes the midnight in a gloomy watch, which yet hopes for nothing at its close.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 149
    • Eventually the body trade grew so reckless that relatives took to holding graveside vigils, lest their loved ones disappear in the night.2016, Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, Fleet (2017), page 165
  2. A period of observation or surveillance at any hour.
    • His dog kept vigil outside the hospital for eight days while he was recovering from an accident.
  3. The eve of a religious festival in which staying awake is part of the ritual devotions.
  4. A quiet demonstration in support of a cause.
    • The protesters kept vigil outside the conference centre in which the party congress was being held.

Verb

vigil (third-person singular simple present vigils, present participle (US) vigiling or (UK) vigilling, simple past and past participle (US) vigiled or (UK) vigilled)

  1. (intransitive) To participate in a vigil.
    • As the arrested painters and their supporters waited out their "day in court," other activists distributed Hiroshima information leaflets, vigiled silently with placards and banners, and marched 500-strong through downtown Boston to a rally at City Hall Plaza.1985 August 17, Loie Hayes, “Lesbian 'Shadow Painters' Join in Nuclear Protest”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 6, page 1

Proper noun capitalized: Vigil

Vigil

  1. A surname.

vigil meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Telugu and Malayalam

vigil in Tamil

விழிப்பு நிலை

vigil in Urdu

عبادت شب, رت جگا, شب بیداری

vigil in Telugu

vigil, wake
జాగారము jāgāramu

vigil in Malayalam

ഉണർന്നിരിക്കൽ, ഉറക്കമിളപ്പ്, ജാഗരണം
More languagesFewer languages
vigil in Kannada
ಜಾಗರಣೆ, ಎಚ್ಚರಿಕೆ, ರಾತ್ರೆಯ ಕಾವಲು, ಪಹರೆ
vigil in Tagalog
lamay
vigil in Arabic
اِعْتِصامٌ iʕtiṣāmun

Examples of vigil in a sentence

  • The number of persons attending the vigil had a lot of meaning to the families.
  • Rafael died this morning, and this afternoon we are going to keep vigil over him.
  • Groups supporting the recall of Kaohsiung City Mayor Han Kuo-yu also organized a vigil in Kaohsiung.

All 26 example sentences with vigil

Synonyms of vigil

Forms of vigil

Noun
pluralvigils
Verb
third-person singular presentvigils
present participle USvigiling
present participle UKvigilling
past participle USvigiled
past USvigiled
past participle UKvigilled
past UKvigilled

Plural of vigil: vigils

Origin of vigil

From Middle English vigile (“a devotional watching”), from Old French vigile, from Latin vigilia (“wakefulness, watch”), from vigil (“awake”), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵ- (“to be strong, lively, awake”). Doublet of Wigilia. See also wake and vigor, from the same root.

Words formed from vigil

Phrases with vigil

Questions about vigil

What does vigil mean?
Vigil means an instance of keeping awake during normal sleeping hours, especially to keep watch or pray.
What is vigil in Tamil?
Vigil in Tamil is விழிப்பு நிலை. See Vigil meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is vigil?
Vigil can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce vigil?
Vigil is pronounced /ˈvɪd͡ʒəl/.
What is the plural of vigil?
The plural of vigil is vigils.

Words near vigil in the dictionary

  1. viggerish
  2. Viggiano
  3. Viggianos
  4. vigia
  5. vigias
  6. vigil
  7. vigilambulism
  8. vigilance
  9. vigilance committee
  10. vigilance committees
  11. vigilance man

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: vigil (page history and authors); Vigil (page history and authors); vigil (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); vigil (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); జాగారము (Telugu) (page history and authors); vigil (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); vigil (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-vigil.wav.

Cite this entry: “vigil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/vigil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.