vigil
noun · verb
Simple meaning
The eve of a religious festival in which staying awake is part of the ritual devotions.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
vijuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈvɪdʒəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The eve of a religious festival in which staying awake is part of the ritual devotions.
An instance of keeping awake during normal sleeping hours, especially to keep watch or pray.
A period of observation or surveillance at any hour.
A period of sleeplessness
“She kept a sleepless vigil beside her sick child until morning.”
A quiet demonstration in support of a cause.
The rite of staying awake for devotional purposes (especially on the eve of a religious festival)
verb
To participate in a vigil.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The eve of a religious festival in which staying awake is part of the ritual devotions.
Used this way, vigil is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a religious use: it carries the weight of tradition and ceremony.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Formal and ceremonial
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Where it naturally appears
- Religion/spirituality
- Historical writing
Nearby words
- watch , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The process of paying close and continuous attention.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A candle lighted by a worshiper in a church.
A candle lighted by a worshiper in a church.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.