Vile means disgustingly unpleasant, or morally low. Vile weather, a vile smell, a vile thing to say.
It works for physical disgust and moral condemnation, and the tone shifts entirely between them: vile weather is a grumble, and a vile crime is not. In British speech the weather sense is much the commoner. Note vilify, meaning to attack somebody's reputation, from the same root; and that vile and evil sound similar, are not related, and cover overlapping ground.
1adjectivevileDisgustingly unpleasant.
“There was a vile smell in that corridor for about a month.”
synonyms: foul, revolting
2adjectivemorallyMorally low.
“It was a vile thing to say and he said it twice.”
vile is a quality of unpleasantness.
Also accepted in games: foul
Latin vilis meant cheap or of low value — the same root as vilify and, at a distance, the vile in vile bodies. Something vile was worthless before it was disgusting, and the moral sense grew from the low price.
Latin
vīlis
Old French
vil
Anglo-Norman
ville
Middle English
vile
English, today
vile
From Middle English vile, vyle, vyl, from Anglo-Norman ville, Old French vil, vile, from Latin vīlis.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA