Meaning

noun a period of sleeplessness

noun the rite of staying awake for devotional purposes (especially on the eve of a religious festival)

noun a purposeful surveillance to guard or observe

originFrom Middle English vigile (“a devotional watching”), from Old French vigile, from Latin vigilia (“wakefulness, watch”), from vigil (“awake”), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵ- (“to be strong, lively, awake”). Doublet of Wigilia. See also wake and vigor, from the same root.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0