vise
/vaɪs/
vise noun: an instrument consisting of two jaws, closing by a screw, lever, cam, or the like, for holding work, as in filing. Also the alternative form of visé.
Noun
vise (plural vises)
- An instrument consisting of two jaws, closing by a screw, lever, cam, or the like, for holding work, as in filing.
- Clamp this loop in a strong vise and twist the two ends evenly into one piece. As the twisting progresses, move the wire along so as to keep the grip of the vise close to the hands.1937 October, R. H. Jenkins, “Five attractive new designs you can work out from inexpensive materials”, in Popular Science, volume 131, number 4, Bonnier Corporation, page 96
- A situation in which one's freedom of choice is constrained.
- I'd like to know what would become of us in the next ten minutes. They've got us in a vise. We're done for, Gall.c. 1921 (date written), Karel Čapek, translated by Paul Selver, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama […], Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1923, →OCLC, Act...
- A screw.
- A spiral staircase.
Verb
vise (third-person singular simple present vises, present participle vising, simple past and past participle vised)
- To clamp with or as with a vise.
- He looked to see the secretary, vised and crackled in those arms, drop limp and senseless.1904, The Cambrian - Volume 24, page 166
- Repeat this step to make the bend at the other 39-inch mark being careful that it is also at a 90° angle to the vised pipe, and also parallel to the first bend.1981, Petersen's Photographic Magazine - Volume 10, Issues 7-12, page 51
Proper noun capitalized: Vise
Vise (plural Vises)
- A surname.
Also used as
vise is also the alternative form of visé.
vise meaning in Hindi, Tagalog, Arabic and Malay
vise in Hindi
- two-jawed instrument for holding work
- बाँक bā̃k
vise in Tagalog
- two-jawed instrument for holding work
- gato
vise in Arabic
- two-jawed instrument for holding work
- مِنْجَلَة minjala, مِلْزَمَة milzama
vise in Malay
- two-jawed instrument for holding work
- ragum
More languagesFewer languages
- vise in Indonesian
- ragum
- vise in Thai
- แท่นจับชิ้นงาน, ปากกาจับของ
- vise in Vietnamese
- mỏ cặp, ê-tô
- vise in Myanmar
- ပြုတ်တူ pruttu
Examples of vise in a sentence
- He reached back to lift each of her legs to vise her knees under his arms.2007, Catherine Anderson, Phantom Waltz, →ISBN, page 302:
- I do clearly remember the last part of that conversation, because it involved Athena promising that the next time she saw me, she was going to vise my jaws open and shit down my throat.2013, Geoff Berner, Festival Man: A Novel, →ISBN:
Forms of vise
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | vises |
| alternative Commonwealth | vice |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | vises |
| present participle | vising |
| past participle | vised |
| past | vised |
| present participle | viseing |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Vises |
Origin of vise
From Middle English vis, vys, vice (“screw”), from Anglo-Norman vyz, vice, from Old French vis (“screw”), from Latin vītis f (“vine”). Probably akin to English withe.
English topographic surname, from Old French deviser (“to split, divide”).
Words formed from vise
- viseless
- viselike
Words that rhyme with vise
Questions about vise
- What does vise mean?
- Vise means an instrument consisting of two jaws, closing by a screw, lever, cam, or the like, for holding work, as in filing.
- What is vise in Hindi?
- Vise in Hindi is बाँक (bā̃k). See Vise meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use vise in a sentence?
- He reached back to lift each of her legs to vise her knees under his arms.
- What part of speech is vise?
- Vise can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce vise?
- Vise is pronounced /vaɪs/.
- What is the plural of vise?
- The plural of vise is vises.
Words near vise in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: vise (page history and authors); Vise (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-vice.ogg.
Cite this entry: “vise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/vise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.