Emily Dickinson Lexicon

VIG'IL, n. [L. vigilia; Fr. vigile; L. vigil, waking, watchful; vigilo, to watch. This is formed on the root of Eng. wake, Sax. wæcan, wecan. The primary sense is to stir or excite, to rouse, to agitate.]

1. Watch; devotion performed in the customary hours of rest or sleep. So they in heav'n their odes and vigils tun'd. – Milton.
2. In church affairs, the eve or evening before any feast, the ecclesiastical day beginning at six o'clock in the evening, and continuing till the same hour the following evening; hence, a religious service performed in the evening preceding a holiday.
3. A fast observed on the day preceding a holiday; a wake. – Cyc.
4. Watch; forbearance of sleep; as, the vigils of the card table. – Addison. Vigils or watchings of flowers, a term used by Linnæus to express a peculiar faculty belonging to the flowers of certain plants, of opening and closing their petals at certain hours of the day. – Cyc.