alias

alias (without any arguments) shows all the aliased commands. For example, you may have

l='ls -alF'

inside your alias file. That means that if you simply type l then enter, you will be shown all of the files (including hidden files)in the current directory in list mode, with appended file information (That is what the F is for)

To create a new alias for vim where you would just have to type v, say

alias v='vim'