1WATCHa period of time, especially during the night, when you stayawake in order to pray, remain with someone who is ill, or watch for danger 〔尤指在夜间为了祈祷、守护病人或提防危险情况的〕守夜,值夜
Eva and Paul kept a constant vigil by their daughter’s hospital bedside.
伊娃和保罗一直在医院里守在女儿的病床边。
2PROTESTa silent political protest in which people waitoutside a building, especially during the night 〔尤指夜间的〕静坐抗议
silent/candle-lit vigil
Two thousand demonstrators held a candle-lit vigil outside the embassy.
kept ... vigil• Each night, Brian kept his lonely vigil, doing homework and listening intensely to what was going on behind the door.• As the family kept vigil, the children saw at close quarters the stubborndetermination of their stepmother.• All that night again Kalchu kept his vigil.• Mileskept vigil by the door but began to grow tired.• He was always in the cheerful rooms upstairs, where the Sisters kept a constant vigil on premature and very sick children.• A well-loved monument to the devotion of a little terrier who kept vigil on his master's grave for many years.• Time lost its familiarcontext, and uncertainty and foreboding colored those who kept vigil.
held ... vigil• Canon Oates held another vigil to mark John's five hundredth day in August.• Outside, 100 opponents of the deathpenaltyheld a silent vigil, and a handful of its supportersjeered.• At the weekend they held a silent vigil in Liverpool.
Originvigil
(1200-1300)Old Frenchvigile, from Latinvigilia“staying awake, keeping watch”, from vigil“awake”