English Dictionary

English vice

固有名詞

軽蔑的 婉語 活用形

(derogatory, potentially offensive) Euphemistic form of gluttony, overeating. / (derogatory, potentially offensive) Euphemistic form of hypocrisy.

日本語の意味

（軽蔑的、かつ攻撃的な表現）大食いや過食に対する婉曲表現 / （軽蔑的、かつ攻撃的な表現）偽善に対する婉曲表現

At family dinners they all rolled their eyes at his so-called English vice, his habit of devouring plates of food as if he hadn't eaten in days.

家族の夕食会では、彼のいわゆる暴食に皆が眉をひそめていた、まるで何日も食べていないかのように皿の料理をむさぼり食べる癖があるからだ。

意味（1）

(derogatory, potentially offensive) Euphemistic form of gluttony, overeating.

The Englishman had a reputation throughout Europe for gluttony; it was said that overeating was the English vice, just as lust was the French vice and drunkenness the German vice. Some Englishmen became very fat, and were famous for being so. Henry VIII ate enormous meals, but as a young man he was slim, perhaps because he always took a great deal of physical exercise. By the time that he was forty-five he was suffering from painful ulcers in his leg which prevented him from riding or walking without the greatest difficulty; but though he ceased to take exercise, he ate as much as ever. He then became very fat.

意味（2）

(derogatory, potentially offensive) Euphemistic form of hypocrisy.

If hypocrisy was the English vice, as the French critic Taine declared, then it had soon become naturalized in the United States.

意味（3）

(derogatory, potentially offensive) Euphemistic form of moralism, particularly vacuous, base, and tedious moralism.

No new thought, nothing of the nature of a finer turning or better expression of an old thought, not even a proper history of what has been previously thought on the subject: an IMPOSSIBLE literature, taking it all in all, unless one knows how to leaven it with some mischief. In effect, the old English vice called CANT, which is MORAL TARTUFFISM, has insinuated itself also into these moralists (whom one must certainly read with an eye to their motives if one MUST read them), concealed this time under the new form of the scientific spirit; moreover, there is not absent from them a secret struggle with the pangs of conscience, from which a race of former Puritans must naturally suffer, in all their scientific tinkering with morals.

意味（4）

(derogatory, potentially offensive) Euphemistic form of snobbishness, particularly sentimental royalism and deference to class and aristocracy.

If the Frenchman saw our aristocracy and liked it, if he saw our snobbishness and liked it, if he set himself to imitate it, we all know what we should feel. We all know that we should feel that that particular Frenchman was a repulsive little gnat. He would be imitating English aristocracy; he would be imitating the English vice. But he would not even understand the vice he plagiarised: especially he would not understand that the vice is partly a virtue.

意味（5）

(derogatory, potentially offensive) Euphemistic form of complacency, particularly casual complacency towards corruption.

Everything in England is done unofficially, casually, by conversations and cliques. The one Parliament that really does rule England is a secret Parliament; the debates of which must not be published—the Cabinet. The debates of the Commons are sometimes important; but only the debates in the Lobby, never the debates in the House. Journalists do control public opinion; but it is not controlled by the arguments they publish—it is controlled by the arguments between the editor and sub-editor, which they do not publish. This casualness is our English vice. It is at once casual and secret. Our public life is conducted privately. Hence it follows that if an English swindler wished to impress us, the last thing he would think of doing would be to put on a uniform.

意味（6）

(derogatory, potentially offensive) Euphemistic form of sadomasochism, particularly flagellation (whipping and spanking).

1978, Ian Gibson, The English Vice: Beating, Sex, and Shame in Victorian England and After, Duckworth, →ISBN, title.

意味（7）

(derogatory, potentially offensive) Euphemistic form of adultery, particularly with domestic trappings resembling a second household.

People talked in the play of the “English vice” till at length the protagonist, Mr. Daventry, turns round and asks: “Is there such a thing, Lady Hillington, as an English vice?” “Oh,” retorted the clever woman, “I thought every one knew that, Mr. Daventry; the English vice is adultery with home comforts.”

意味（8）

(derogatory, potentially offensive) Euphemistic form of homosexuality.

[…] prostitution was openly paraded in the streets, there was shamelessness later in public parks, and there was the ‘English vice’—i.e. homosexuality (the French, a little irked at being considered immoral by their neighbours, have periodically been delighted to discover a few tears in the mantle of British virtue).

意味（9）

(derogatory, potentially offensive) Euphemistic form of oppression, particularly with regard to the poor.

Encomia on a tolerant and kindly society (remember the unarmed policemen?) has to confront believers in the special depravity of a people of hypocrites, uniquely devoted to what was then called the English vice, whether this meant sexual aberration or oppression of the poor. Only in England, said the one side, was political freedom fully established; only in England, replied the other, was economic freedom systematically suppressed.

the English vice （ canonical ）