VIGILANCE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Vigilance

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/vˈɪdʒələns/ Listen

noun

Vigilance n.

The quality or state of being vigilant; forbearance of sleep; wakefulness.

Watchfulness in respect of danger; care; caution; circumspection. "And flaming ministers to watch and tend Their earthly charge; of these the vigilance I dread."

Guard; watch. (Obs.) "In at this gate none pass the vigilance here placed."

Vigilance committee, a volunteer committee of citizens for the oversight and protection of any interest, esp. one organized for the summary suppression and punishment of crime, as when the processes of law appear inadequate.

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Etymology of 'Vigilance'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Vigilance" Quotes from Famous Books

... due to the vigilance of Tom Yeager. He had seen Bothwell slip down from the bridge and follow me ...

— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... it. He regretted that Jane Brown was no longer on board—as a sort of representative of Captain Anthony's faithful servants, to watch quietly what went on in that part of the ship this fatal marriage had closed to their vigilance. That had been excellent. For she was ...

— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... Mr. Arthur served in that capacity at a voting-place in a carpenter's shop, which occupied the site of the present Fifth Avenue Hotel. When, in 1856, the Republican party was formed, Mr. Arthur was a prominent member of the Young Men's Vigilance Committee, which advocated the election of Fremont and Dayton. It was during this campaign that he became acquainted with Edwin D. Morgan, and gained ...

— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... with crimes at a distance, but rely upon our own constancy, and venture to approach what we resolve never to touch. We thus enter the bowers of ease, and repose in the shades of security. Here the heart softens, and vigilance subsides; we are then willing to inquire whether another advance can not be made, and whether we may not at least turn our eyes upon the gardens of pleasure. We approach them with scruple and hesitation; we enter them, but enter timorous and trembling, and always hope to ...

— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... The slave-trade clause seems in most States to have been observed with the others. In South Carolina "a cargo of near three hundred slaves was sent out of the Colony by the consignee, as being interdicted by the second article of the Association."[25] In Virginia the vigilance committee of Norfolk "hold up for your just indignation Mr. John Brown, Merchant, of this place," who has several times imported slaves from Jamaica; and he is thus publicly censured "to the end that all such foes to the rights of British America may be publickly known ... as the enemies of ...

— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

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