The word 'vile' entered English in the late 14th century from Anglo-French and Old French 'vil', meaning 'lowly, cheap, worthless'. This, in turn, traces back to the Latin 'vilis', which carried the sense of 'cheap, base, of low value'. The Latin term is thought to be derived from the Proto-Indo-European root wes- meaning 'to buy, sell', which is also the ancestor of the word 'venal'. The semantic journey is clear: from the concrete notion of being inexpensive or common, the meaning evolved to describe something considered morally low, worthless, or repulsive. Thus, the modern abstract sense of extreme moral depravity or loathsomeness grew directly from the ancient concept of low market value.

The word 'vile' is a simplex word derived as a whole from Latin.