vicinity (visiniti)

[ Swift . The abundance and vicinity of country seats. 2. Neighborhood; surrounding or adjoining space, district, or country. Gravity alone must have carried them downwards to the vicinity of the sun. Bentley, Sermon vii., A Confutation of Atheism. Communipaw is one of the numerous little villages in the vicinity of this most beautiful of cities [New York]. Irving, Knickerbocker, p. 100. 3. Nearne in intercourse; close relationship. Their [the bishops'] vicinity and relation to our ble ed Lord. Jer. Taylor , Episcopacy A erted, § 40. =Syn. Proximity , etc. See neighborhood : viciosity (vish-i-os'i-ti), n. [Early mod. E. vic i ositee ; vitiosita ( t- ) s , vitiosus , vicious: see vicious.] Depravity; viciousne ; vice; lack of purity, as of language or style. Also spelled vitiosity. In which respect it may come to pa e that what the Grammarian setteth downe for a viciositee in speach may become a vertue and no vice. Putten ham , Arte of Eng. Poesie, p. 129. vicious (vish'us), a . [Formerly also vitious ; vicieux = Pr. vicios = Sp. Pg. vicioso = It. vizi oso , vitiosus , faulty, vicious, vitium , fault, vice: see vicel .] 1. Characterized by vice or imperfection; faulty; defective. Some vicious mole of nature. Shak ., Hamlet, i. 4. 24. is utterly Bacon, Advancement of Learning, ii. Their [the logicians'] form of induction vicious and incompetent. If a creature be self-neglectful, and insensible of danger, or if he want such a degree of pa ion in any kind as is useful to preserve, sustain, or defend himself, this must certainly be esteem'd vitious , in regard of the design and Shaftesbury , Inquiry, II. i. § 3. end of Nature. Mannerism is pardonable, and is sometimes even agreeable, when the manner, though vicious, is natural. Macaulay, Boswell's Johnson. 2. Addicted to vice; habitually transgre ing moral law; depraved; profligate; wicked. Happy the Roman state, where it was lawful, If our own sons were vicious , to choose one Out of a virtuous stock, though of poor parents, And make him noble. Fletcher , Spanish Curate, i. 3. Wycherley. appears to have led, during a long course of years, that most wretched life, the life of a vicious old boy about town. ne . Shak., A. and C., iii. 13. 111. The best and most excellent of the old law-givers and philosophers among the Greeks had an allay of vicious Jer. Taylor , Works (ed. 1835), I. 25. (c) Unruline ; trickine ; bad training, as of a shying or bolting horse. A broken-down plough-horse, that had outlived almost everything but his viciousne . Irving , Sketch-Book, p. 436. (d) Spitefulne ; malignancy. vici itude (vi-sis'i-tud), n. [= F. vici itude = Sp. vicisitud = Pg. vici itude , do , change, vici im , by turns, vix (vic-), change: see vice4 .] 1. Regular change or succe ion of one thing to another; alternation. God created them equall, but by this it came to pa e that the vici itude or intercourse of day and night was vncertaine. Purchas , Pilgrimage, p. 260. Grateful vici itude , like day and night. Milton , P. L., vi. 8. 2. A pa ing from one state or condition to another; irregular change; revolution; mutation: as, the vici itudes of fortune. But it is not good to look too long upon these turning wheels of vici itude , lest we become giddy. Bacon, Vici itudes of Things (ed. 1887). His whole life rings the changes - hot and cold, in and out, off and on, to and fro: he is peremptory in nothing Rev. T. Adams , Works, L. 505. As long as there are Men, there must be malignant Humours, there must be Vices, and vici itudes of Things. Howell, Letters, I. vi. 45. but in vici itudes. Sometimes 'tis grateful to the rich to try A short vici itude , and fit of poverty. Dryden, tr. of Horace's Odes, I. xxix. 23. But vici itudes so extraordinary as those which marked the reign of Charles the Second can only be explained by supposing an utter want of principle in the political world. Macaulay , Hallam's Const. Hist. The whirlpool of political vici itude, which makes the tenure of office generally so fragile. Hawthorne , Scarlet Letter, Int., p. 12. vici itudinary (vi-sis-i-tu'di-nā-ri), a. [L. vici itudo ( -din- ), vici itude, + -ary .] Subject to vici itudes; exhibiting or characterized by a succe ion of changes; vici itudinous. We say. the days of man [are] vici itudinary, as though he had as many good days as ill. Donne, Devotions, p. 313.