virtue
Americannoun
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moral excellence; goodness; righteousness.
- Antonyms:
- vice
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conformity of one's life and conduct to moral and ethical principles; uprightness; rectitude.
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chastity; virginity.
to lose one's virtue.
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a particular moral excellence.
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a good or admirable quality or property.
the virtue of knowing one's weaknesses.
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effective force; power or potency.
a charm with the virtue of removing warts.
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virtues, an order of angels.
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manly excellence; valor.
idioms
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make a virtue of necessity, to make the best of a difficult or unsatisfactory situation.
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by / in virtue of, by reason of; because of.
to act by virtue of one's legitimate authority.
noun
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the quality or practice of moral excellence or righteousness
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a particular moral excellence
the virtue of tolerance
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any of the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance) or theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity)
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any admirable quality, feature, or trait
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chastity, esp in women
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archaic an effective, active, or inherent power or force
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on account of or by reason of
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to acquiesce in doing something unpleasant with a show of grace because one must do it in any case
Related Words
See goodness.
Other Word Forms
- nonvirtue noun
- virtueless adjective
- virtuelessness noun
Etymology
Origin of virtue
First recorded in 1175–1225; alteration (with i from Latin ) of Middle English vertu, from Anglo-French, Old French from Latin virtūt-, stem of virtūs “maleness, worth, virtue,” equivalent to vir “man” + -tūs, abstract noun suffix; virile
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The Supreme Court ruled, however, that he was a US citizen by virtue of being born in the United States.
From Barron's
The proposed rule makes clear that investment innovation is a virtue, not a vice, under fiduciary law.
Grace and Faith must work together, using their namesake virtues to outsmart the scoundrels and stay alive, and to say it’s far less effective than it was seven years ago is an understatement.
From Salon
It sounds like mere virtue signaling, but it turns out Canadians mean it.
I’m not saying there’s virtue in an umpire being wrong.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
