vivisepulture 
Pliny . . . speaks of the practice of vivisepulture as 
continued to his own time. 
Dean Liddell, Archsologia, XL. 243. (Davies.) 
Vivo (ve'vo), fi. [It., < L. vivim, living: see rire.'] 
Same as vivace. 
Viyr6 (ve-vra'), a. [Heraldic F., < OF. vitre, F. 
f/irre, a serpent: see vijicr.] In her., gliding: 
applied to a serpent used as a bearing, 
vixen (vik'sn), . and a. [Formerly also vixon; 
var. of firen, < ME. fixcii, < AS. "fyjeen, Jixen, a 
she-fox: see./fje.] I. i. 1. A she-fox. 
Fixen. This is the name of a she-fox, otherwise and 
more anciently foxiu. It is in reproach applied to a wo- 
man whose nature and condition is thereby compared to 
the shee-fox. 
Verstegan, Rest, of Decayed Intelligence (ed. 1628), p. 334. 
They is Plumstead foxes, too ; and a vixen was trapped 
Just across the field yonder ... no later than yesterday 
morning. Trollope, Last Chronicle of liarset, xxxiii. 
The destruction of a vixen in April is a distinct blow to 
sport in the following season. 
Edinburgh Rev., CLXVI. 412. 
Hence 2. A turbulent, quarrelsome woman; 
a scold; a termagant: formerly used occasion- 
ally of a man. 
I think this be the curstest quean in the world ; you 
see what she is, a little fair, but as proud as the devil, and 
the veriest vixen that lives upon God's earth. 
Peele, Old Wives Tale. 
0, when she 's angry, she is keen and shrewd ! 
She was a vixen when she went to school ; 
And, though she be but little, she is fierce. 
Shak., M. N. D., iii. 2. 324. 
Those fiery vixons, who (in pursuance of their base de- 
signs, or gratification of their wild passions) really do 
themselves embroil things, and raise miserable combus- 
tions in the world. Barrmi', Sermons, I. xvii. 
I hate a Vixon, that her Maid assails, 
And scratches with her Bodkin, or her Nails. 
Congreve, tr. of Ovid's Art of Love. 
II. a. Vixenish. 
Better [health] than he deserves, for disturbing us with 
his vixen brawls, and breaking God's peace and the King's. 
Scott, Antiquary, xxii. 
vixenish (vik'sn-ish), a. [< vixen + -ish 1 .] Of, 
pertaining to, or resembling a vixen; cross; 
ill-tempered; snarling. 
The shrill biting talk of a vixenish wife. 
George Eliot, Felix Holt, xi. 
vixenly (vik'sn-li), a. [< vixen + -ly 1 .] Having 
the qualities of a vixen ; ill-tempered. 
A vixenly pope. Barrow, Pope's Supremacy. 
Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seek- 
ing, at this very moment, to shelter themselves under the 
wing of the federal eagle. 
Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter, Int, p. 4. 
viz. An abbreviation of videlicet, usually read 
'namely.' The z here, as in oz., represents a medieval 
symbol of contraction (a symbol also represented by a 
semicolon), originally a ligature for the Latin et, and (and 
so equivalent to the symbol &), extended to represent the 
termination -et and the enclitic conjunction -que, and final- 
ly used as a mere mark of abbreviation, equivalent in use 
to the period as now so used, viz being equivalent to vi., 
and not originally requiring the period after it. 
Vizagapatam work. See work. 
vizamentt (vl'za-ment), n. [A varied form of 
*visement, for avisement, advisement.] Advise- 
ment. [An intentionally erroneous form.] 
The council, look you, shall desire to hear the fear of 
Got, and not to hear a riot ; take your vizaments in that. 
Shak., M. W. of W., i. 1. 39. 
vizardt, An obsolete form of vizor. 
vizard-maskt, 1. A vizor; a mask. 
That no Woman be Allow'd or presume to wear a Vizard 
Mask in either of the Theatres. 
J. Ashton, Social Life in Reign of Queen Anne, II. 11. 
2. One who wears a mask or vizor. 
There is Sir Charles Sedley looking on, smiling with or 
at the actors of these scenes, among the audience, ... or 
flirting with vizard-masks in the pit. 
Doran, Annals of the Stage, 1. 172. 
vizcacha, . See viseacha. 
VJzie, n. See visie. 
vizir, vizier (vi-zer', often erroneously viz'ier), 
n. [Also visier, vezir, wizier; = F. visir, vizir = 
Sp. visir = Pg. vizir = It. visire = G. vezir = D. 
vizier = Sw. Dan. visir, < Turk, vezir, < Ar. wa- 
zir, a counselor, orig. a porter, bearer of the 
burdens of state, < wazara, bear a burden, sus- 
tain. Of. alguazil, ult. the same word with the 
Ar. article.] The title of various high officials 
in Mohammedan countries, especially of the 
chief ministers of state. 
Thus utter'd Coumourgi, the dauntless vizier; 
The reply was the brandish of sabre and spear. 
Byron, Siege of Corinth, xxii. 
His subjects, headed by a set of hereditary ministers 
called viziers, have risen to oppose certain reforms pro- 
posed by Purrus Ham. 
W. H. Russell, Diary in India, II. 185. 
Grand vizir, the highest officer of state in certain Mo- 
hammedan countries ; in the Turkish empire, the prime 
minister and formerly also commander of the army. 
6778 
vizirate, vizierate (vi-zer'at), n. [< vizir,vizier, 
+ -att' s .~] The office, state, or authority of a 
vizir. 
vizirial, yizierial (vi-ze'ri-ai), a. [< vizir, vi- 
zicr, + -m/.] Of, pertaining to, or issued by a 
vizir. 
I appealed . . . to firmans and vizirial letters, in which 
force, as a means of proselytism, was strictly forbidden. 
J. Baker, Turkey, p. 181. 
vizirship, viziership (vi-zer'ship), n. [< vizir, 
vizier, + fillip.'] The office or authority of a vi- 
zir. 
Over the whole realm of song arose the Oriental dynasty 
under the prime vizierxhip of Byron. 
W. Mathews, Getting on in the World, p. 105. 
vizor, visor (vi/.'or), n. [Formerly also vigour, 
and more correctly viser, also visar, and, with 
excrescent -rf, visard, vizard; < ME. viser, visere, 
vysere, < OF. visiere, F. risiere, a vizor, < vis, 
face, countenance: see vis 1 , visage.'] 1. For- 
merly, a mask concealing the face; hence, in 
general, any disguise or means of concealment. 
Under the viser of envie 
Lo thus was hid the trecherie. 
Gower, Conf. Amant., ii. 
Lately within this realm divers persons have disguised 
and apparelled them, and covered their faces with visourg 
and other things in such manner that they should not be 
known. Laws of Henry VIII. (1511), quoted in Ribton- 
[Turner's Vagrants and Vagrancy, p. 70. 
This lewd woman, 
That wants no artificial looks or tears 
To help the vizor she has now put on. 
B. Jonson, Volpone, iv. 2. 
2. In more modern usage, the movable front of 
the helmet in general ; more accurately, the up- 
per movable part. Where there are two it is also 
called nasal. See cuts under armet and helmet. 
Yet did a splinter of his lance 
Through Alexander's visor glance. 
Scott, Marmion, iii. 24. 
And the knight 
Had rigor up, and show'd a youthful face. 
Tennyson, Geraint. 
3f. The countenance; visage. 
This loutish clown is such that you never saw so ill- 
favoured a vizar. Sir P. Sidney, Arcadia, I. 
4. The fore piece of a cap, projecting over and 
protecting the eyes. 
vizor, visor (yiz'or), v. t. [< vizor, .] To 
cover with a vizor, in any sense. 
Hence with thy brew'd enchantments, foul deceiver ! 
Hast thou betray'd my credulous innocence 
With visor'd falsehood and base forgery? 
Milton, Comus, 1. 698. 
vizorless, visorless (viz'or-les), a. [< vizor, 
visor, + -less.~] Having no vizor. 
Vlach (vlak), a. and n. Same as TTallachian. 
vlack-vark (vlak'vark), n. [< D. vlek, former- 
ly also vlak, vlack, spot (= E. fleck), + vark, 
< varken, hog, pig: see farrow 1 and pork, and 
cf. aardvark7\ The wart-hog of South Africa, 
Pliacochccrus setliiopictts, very similar to the spe- 
cies figured under riiacocJicerus (which see). 
vlaie, n. Same as vly. 
Vlemingkx's solution. See solution. 
vly (vli or fli), n. [Also vley, vlei, rarely vlaie, 
erroneously fly ; in local use in New York and 
New Jersey and in South Africa, in regions first 
settled by the Dutch. No D. form vley appears 
in the D. dictionaries; it is prob. a local con- 
traction, in a slightly deflected use, of D. valey 
(Sewel, 1766), now valid, orig. valleye (Kilian, 
1598), a valley, vale, dale : see valley.'] A swamp 
or morass ; a shallow pond ; a depression with 
water in it in the rainy season, but dry at other 
times. 
Up over the grassy edge of the basin which formed the 
vly, and down the slope which led to the gate, the children 
came bounding pell-mell. The Atlantic, LXIII. 581. 
I have seen numbers of these tall nests in the shallow 
pans of water or vleys, as they are locally called in 
Bushraanland. Nature, XXXVII. 465. 
To the same settlers [the Dutch] are due the geographi- 
cal appellations of kill for stream, clove for gorge, and vly 
or vlaie for swamp, so frequently met with in the Catskills. 
A. Guyot, Amer. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., XIX. 432. 
The large vlei, that was dry when he had previously 
crossed it, but was now gemmed by little rain-pools, af- 
fording baths for little groups of ducks, amid the green 
herbage of its bed. Baines, Ex. in S. W. Africa, p. 293. 
V-moth (ve'mdth), n. A European geometrid 
moth. Halia vauaria: so called from a dark- 
brown V-shaped mark on the fore wing : a Brit- 
ish collectors' name. 
VO (vo), n. [Suggested by volt' 2 : see voltaic.'] 
In elect., a name proposed for the unit of self- 
induction, equal to the thousandth of a secohm. 
See secohm. 
Voandzeia (v-6-and-ze'ia), M. [NL. (Thouars, 
1806), from the name iii Madagascar.] A ge- 
vocal 
nus of leguminous plants, of the tribe Pltatieotex. 
It is distinguished from the closely related genus Vigna 
by a one-seeded roundish legume, which ripens beneath 
the ground. The only species, r. subterranea, is a native 
of the tropics, perhaps of Africa. It is a creeping herb 
with long-stalked leaves of three pinnate leaflets, and 
short axillary few-flowered peduncles recurved after 
flowering. The flowers are of two kinds one bisexual, 
small, and pale ; the other fertile and apetalous, lengthen- 
ing, and pushing the young pod into the earth, in whk-h 
it ripens like a peanut. It is cultivated from Bamnarra 
and Guinea to Natal in Africa, and is now naturalised in 
Brazil and Surinam. Both pods and seeds are edible; 
they are known as the Bambarra yround-nut, earth-pea, 
underground bean, or Madagascar peanut, and are ex- 
ported into India under the name of Mozambique grain. 
See ffobbe, the name in Surinam. 
VOC. An abbreviation of vocative. 
vocable (vo'ka-bl), n. [< F. vocable = Sp. vo- 
cablo == Pg. vbcabulo = It. vocabolo = G. voca- 
bel, < L. vocabulutn, an appellation, a designa- 
tion, name, ML. a word, < vocare, call: see vo- 
cation.'] A word; a term; a name; specifi- 
cally, a word considered without regard to 
meaning, but merely as composed of certain 
sounds or letters. 
We will next endeavour to understand that vocable or 
term tyrannus (that is, a tyrant or an evil king) cast 
upon Richard. Sir G. Buck, Hist. Rich. III., v. 569. 
A word or two may be spared to the formidable-looking 
vocable Conciossiacosache, which so excited Alneri's bile. 
Booke of Precedence (E. E. T. S., extra ser.), ii. 68, note. 
vocabulary (vo-kab'u-la-ri), n. ; pi. vocabula- 
ries (-riz). [= F\ vocabulaire= Sp. Pg. vociihuld- 
rio = It. vocabolario = G. vocabularium, < NL. 
vocabitlarium, neut., ML. NL. vocabularies (sc. 
liber), a list of words, a vocabulary, < L. vo- 
cabulum, an appellation, name, ML. word : see 
vocable.'] 1. A list or collection of the words 
of a language, a dialect, a single work or author, 
a nomenclature, or the like, arranged usually 
in alphabetical order and briefly defined and ex- 
plained ; a glossary ; a word-book ; a dictionary 
or lexicon: as, a vocabulary of Anglo-Indian 
words; a vocabulary of technical terms; a vo- 
cabulary of Virgil. 
I should long ere this hare sent you a Transcript of the 
Saxon Vocabvlarie you had once of mee. 
W. Boswell (Ellis's Lit. Letters, p. 152). 
A concise Vocabulary of the First Six Books of Homer's 
Iliad. Amer. Jour. Phttol., X. 263. 
2. The words of a language ; the sum or stock 
of words employed in a language, or by a par- 
ticular person ; range of language. 
His vocabulary seems to have been no larger than was 
necessary for the transaction of business. 
tlacaulay, Hist. Eng., xi. 
P. From whence are those casual winds called flaws? 
T. In the Cornish vocabulary that term signifies to cut. 
Theoph. Botanista, On Cornwall, p. 5. (Nares, I. 313). 
Ingenious men have tried to show that in the present 
English vocabulary there are more Romance words than 
Teutonic. E. A. Freeman, Amer. Lects., p. 163. 
The orator treads in a beaten round ; . . . language is 
ready-shaped to his purpose; he speaks out of a cut and 
dry vocabulary. H. L. Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque, iv. 
=Syn. 1. Vocabulary, Dictionary, Glossary, Lexicon, No- 
menclature. A vocabitlary, in the present use, is a list of 
words occurring in a specific work or author, generally 
arranged alphabetically, concisely defined, and appended 
to the text ; whereas we generally apply the term diction- 
ary to a word-book of all the words in a language or in 
any department of art or science, without reference to any 
particular work : thus, we speak of a vocabulary to Ccesar, 
but of a dictionary of the Latin language, or of architec- 
ture, chemistry, etc. An exception to this may be where 
the words of an author are so fully treated, by derivation, 
illustration, etc., as to seem to amount to more than a 
vocabulary: as, a Homeric dictionary. A glossary is yet 
more restricted than a vocabulary, being a list and expla- 
nation of such terms in a work or author as are peculiar, 
as by being technical, dialectal, or antiquated ; as, a glos- 
sary to Chaucer, Bums, etc. ; a glossary of terms of art, 
philosophy, etc. Lexicon was originally and is often still 
confined to dictionaries of the Greek or Hebrew tongues, 
but it is also freely applied to a dictionary of any dead or 
merely foreign language ; as, a German-English lexicon. 
A nomenclature is a complete list of the names or techni- 
cal terms belonging to any one division or subdivision of 
- science. 2. Idiom, Diction, etc. See language. 
vocabulist (vo-kab'u-list), n. [< F. rocabu- 
liste; as Ij.vocabulitm, a word, + -ist.J 1. The 
writer or compiler of a vocabulary; a lexicog- 
rapher. 2f. A vocabulary ; a lexicon. 
The lernar can, . . . with the frenche rocabulyst, . . 
understande any anthour that writeth in the sayd tong, 
by his owne study. Palsgrave, p. 161. 
vocal (vo'kal), a. and . [< F. vocal = Sp. Pg. 
vocal = li.'vocale, < L. vocalis, sounding, sono- 
rous, as a noun, vocalis, a vowel, < vox (voc-), 
voice: see voice. Cf. vowel, a doublet of vocal.] 
I. a. 1. Pertaining to the voice, to speech, or 
to song; uttered or modulated by the voice: 
oral. 
Forth came the human pair, 
And join'd their vocal worship to the qiiiiv. 
.ViV(i,, P. L., ix. 198. 
