Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Moral excellence and righteousness; goodness.
- n. An example or kind of moral excellence: the virtue of patience.
- n. Chastity, especially in a woman.
- n. A particularly efficacious, good, or beneficial quality; advantage: a plan with the virtue of being practical.
- n. Effective force or power: believed in the virtue of prayer.
- n. Christianity The fifth of the nine orders of angels in medieval angelology.
- n. Obsolete Manly courage; valor.
- idiom. by On the grounds or basis of; by reason of: well-off by virtue of a large inheritance.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Manly spirit; bravery; valor; daring; courage.
- n. Moral goodness; the practice of moral duties and the conformity of life and conversation to the moral law; uprightness; rectitude; morality: the opposite of vice.
- n. A particular moral excellence: as, the virtue of temperance or of charity.
- n. Specifically, female purity; chastity.
- n. Any good quality, merit, or admirable faculty.
- n. An inherent power; a property capable of producing certain effects; strength; force; potency; efficacy; influence, especially active influence, and often medicinal efficacy.
- n. One of the orders of the celestial hierarchy. The virtues are often represented in art as angels in complete armor, bearing pennons and battle-axes.
- n. A mighty work; a miracle.
- n. Synonyms Morals, Ethics, etc. (see morality); probity, integrity, rectitude, worth.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete Manly strength or courage; bravery; daring; spirit; valor.
- n. Active quality or power; capacity or power adequate to the production of a given effect; energy; strength; potency; efficacy.
- n. Energy or influence operating without contact of the material or sensible substance.
- n. Excellence; value; merit; meritoriousness; worth.
- n. Specifically, moral excellence; integrity of character; purity of soul; performance of duty.
- n. A particular moral excellence.
- n. Specifically: Chastity; purity; especially, the chastity of women; virginity.
- n. One of the orders of the celestial hierarchy.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any admirable quality or attribute
- n. morality with respect to sexual relations
- n. a particular moral excellence
- n. the quality of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong
Etymologies
- Middle English vertu, from Anglo-Norman vertu, Middle French vertu, from Latin virtus ("manliness, bravery, worth, moral excellence"), from vir ("man"); see virile. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English vertu, from Old French, from Latin virtūs, manliness, excellence, goodness, from vir, man. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“But then his trousers were always rolled up at the knee, for the convenience of wading on the slightest notice; and his virtue, supposing it to exist, was undeniably virtue in rags, which, on the authority even of bilious philosophers, who think all well-dressed merit overpaid, is notoriously likely to remain unrecognized (perhaps because it is seen so seldom).”
“The habit of virtue creates for him no wants but those which virtue itself suffices to satisfy; it is thus that _virtue is always its own peculiar reward_, that it remunerates itself with all the advantages which it incessantly procures for others.”
“V. ii.348 (448,5) [The virtue of your eye must break my oath] I believe the author means that the _virtue, _ in which word _goodness_ and _power_ are both comprised, _must dissolve_ the obligation of the oath.”
“V. v.220 (297,9) the temple/Of virtue was she; yea, and she herself] That is, She was not only _the temple of virtue_, but _virtue herself_.”
“* The term virtue* is employed in various senses, which, though they cover”
“Not wanting to make love to Bella until they are married, saying his virtue is the only thing he has intact; he is also a virgin.”
Twilight Lexicon » Bill Condon talks to the fans on Facebook!
“Cicero said "The term virtue is from the word that signifies man; a man's chief quality is fortitude.”
“The measure that men commonly apply to determine what they call virtue and vice.”
“I'd begin from the ancient Roman ideal of manliness - which is the root of our term virtue [vir is Latin for man] - and work up through the weakening of that ideal of manliness by Christianity, and on towards Rousseau's bourgeois man before turning to Hemingway and such figures as Michael Landon as Pa Ingalls [here I would be indebted to Dutch.]”
“You and De Thou, who pride yourselves on what you call virtue -- you have failed in causing the death of perhaps a hundred thousand men -- at once and in the broad daylight -- for no end, while Richelieu and I have caused the death of far fewer, one by one, and by night, to found a great power.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘virtue’.
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hunting
crudely, unequivocal, obsolete, obscure, overtly, misdeed, shack, inherent, outcry, hefty, composed, poised and 318 more...
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PHIL - vocabulary of thinking
philosophy, Socratic, dialogue, philosopher, Athenian, philosophical, politic, Greek, method, death, ancient, believe and 243 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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RELI - words with Biblical connotations
Words in the Bible evoking biblical stories or with special spiritual meaning. Proper names have been reduced to the minimum.
ark, judgement, holy, saint, baptism, spirit, love, eternal, altar, balsam, covenant, flood and 1115 more...
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Specifically
Being a list of words which have "specifically" in their definitions.
recompose, specifically, Dutch, abstinence, discipline, virtue, namely, opening, century, amalgamation, cup, second and 303 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...health, follow, condition, meeting, minister, beginning, chapter, information, language, remain, covered, respect and 2614 more...
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Invincible space monkey
That which exist only in our minds
moral, honour, dignity, loyalty, virtue, justice, right, wrong, truth, ethics, property, value and 17 more...
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Sarah's words
adept, pedagogic, pedagogy, discerning, genuine, articulate, collaboration, enterprise, sterile, asunder, prudent, imprudent and 19 more...
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GRE Readings
sophistry, religious, venture, touching, slander, rotunda, singular, spurious, rhetoric, virtue, temper, tardy and 133 more...
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Transcendentalism (Thoreau)
A list of words from our Thoreau readings.
simplicity, Aurora, vigor, Memnon, somnolence, servitor, simplify, supernumerary, sentinel, rudiment, Veda, Saint Vitus and 43 more...
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The Golden Rule
TABLE OF PROPOSED RULES TO LIVE BY
The Golden Rule Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The Silver Rule Do not do unto others what you would not have them do un...ethics, reciprocity, silver rule, karma, tit for tat, newton's third law, virtue, temperance, fortitude, prudence, justice, humanity and 44 more...
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Happy Therapy
Starting up a therapeutic service? Here are some words you can sprinkle throughout your brochure to sell your particular brand of change.
holistic, integration, nurture, exploration, acceptance, treatment, empower, supportive, teamwork, development, change, community and 14 more...
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Favorites
disparage, partisan, cupidity, hokum, tussle, odious, dastardly, overture, plane, chronic, peering, peer and 328 more...
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My GRE Vocab
moniker, sobriquet, prerogative, aberration, aberrant, nuance, notorious, infamous, content, refer, allude, renown and 109 more...
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Vampire Words
Words that make me think of Vampire: The Requiem
torpor, torpid, amaranth, vitae, embrace, ventrue, toreador, masquerade, dominate, nightmare, majesty, dread and 103 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for virtue.
anydelirium 'Virtue is its own punishment.' -Aneurin Bevan Feb 20, 2008