virga

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The virga was also used, a rod commonly of birch, a tree the educational use of which had been already discovered.

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Definitions (3)

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  1. noun Wisps of precipitation streaming from a cloud but evaporating before reaching the ground.

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Examples (36)

  • This will give a more clear meaning to the words 'rod' (virga), and 'staff' (baculus), when they occur together, as in the 23rd Psalm; and remember the distinction is that a rod bends like a switch, but a staff is stiff. —  Proserpina, Volume 1 Studies Of Wayside Flowers
  • In proof, may be brought a line from a Latin poem on Cricket Clavigeri fallit verbera--virga cadit And another on scraping a man down at the Robin Hood Radit arenosam pes inimicus humum The scratching of the foot on the sandy floor is admirable During a vacation, Lord Sandwich took him to Holland; and he sported on his return a Dutch-built coat for many weeks. —  The English Spy An Original Work Characteristic, Satirical, And Humorous. Comprising Scenes And Sketches In Every Rank Of Society, Being Portraits Drawn From The Life
  • In the system of "musica mensurabilis" or measured music which was inaugurated a little later, the virga (which had meanwhile developed into a square-headed neume) was adopted as the longa or long note, and the punctus in two of its forms as breve and semi-breve (short and half-short). —  Music Notation and Terminology
  • The virga was also used, a rod commonly of birch, a tree the educational use of which had been already discovered. —  Roman life in the days of Cicero
  • That first syllable of it, if you look in Max Muller, you will find really means "nerve," and from it come "vis," and "vir," and "virgin" (through vireo), and the connected word "virga"--"a rod;"--the green rod, or springing bough of a tree, being the type of perfect human strength, both in the use of. —  The Ethics of the Dust
 

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/ˈvərgə/
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