0 an act of staying awake, especially at night, in order to be with a person who is very ill or dying, or to make a protest, or to pray:
1 a period of staying awake to be with someone who is ill or to call public attention to something:
The populace that had gathered for the feast customarily kept a vigil with praises throughout the entire night.
There the vigils survived well into the sixteenth century even as their papal cousins had vanished three hundred years before.
She arrived, and we alternated the vigil for the rest of the morning.
In the hands of these clerics, then, the papal vigil achieved its most striking transformation from private ritual to public spectacle.
The chapter then chanted a vigil of one nocturn, after which each member received supper and distributions of currency from their hosts.
Vigil provides distributed trust, access control and authentication services in the pervasive computing environment.
During the vigil, the night comes on.
Patients were more likely to experience decreased levels of agitation and wakefulness while also breathing more slowly and deeply with less effort at the conclusion of the music vigil.