Word
virtue
US/ˈvɝtʃu/
UK/vˈɜːtʃuː/
Definitions
01moral excellence
n. behavior that shows high moral standards and goodness.
n. conformity to a standard of right; moral excellence and integrity.
“He was a man of great virtue who always helped those in need.”
“The philosopher argued that true virtue is not merely the absence of vice but the active pursuit of the common good.”
Synonyms
Antonyms
02a good quality
n. a particular good quality or habit that a person has.
n. a specific commendable quality or trait of character.
“Patience is a virtue when you are dealing with difficult customers.”
“Among her many virtues, her ability to remain calm under extreme pressure was perhaps the most valuable to the legal team.”
03an advantage
n. an advantage or a useful feature that something has.
n. an inherently advantageous or beneficial quality of an object, system, or idea.
“The main virtue of this new software is that it is very easy to use.”
“The committee debated the virtues of the proposed high-speed rail link, weighing the environmental benefits against the projected construction costs.”
Formal
Antonyms
04chastity
n. traditional moral behavior regarding sex, especially for women.
n. moral excellence in sexual conduct; specifically, a woman's virginity or chastity.
“In old stories, the hero often fights to protect a lady's virtue.”
“The nineteenth-century novel often centered on the social consequences of a protagonist's perceived loss of virtue.”
Archaic · Literary
Antonyms
05by virtue of
n. because of something or by using something.
n. used in the fixed phrase 'by virtue of' to indicate a cause, reason, or means.
“She got the job by virtue of her many years of experience in the field.”
“The court ruled that the defendant was entitled to a refund by virtue of the consumer protection laws enacted the previous year.”
Formal
Usage
Always used with the preposition 'of' followed by a noun phrase.
Synonyms
Real-World Examples
“Their power arises from the fact that games don’t just create worlds, but new visions of the good, telling players what to care about by virtue of what the game rewards through scores.” “These promotional works, marked by flashy graphics and rapid-fire jump-cuts between short shots, influenced movies: The sense of energy increased, at the expense of old-fashioned virtues like continuity.” Etymology
From Middle English vertu, virtue, borrowed from Anglo-Norman vertu, virtu, from Latin virtus (“manliness, bravery, worth, moral excellence”), from vir (“man”). Doublet of vertu. See virile. In this sense, displaced Old English cræft, whence Modern English craft.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Collocations
Word family
Related words
Idioms
dormitive virtue — A type of tautology in which an item is explained in terms of the item itself, only put in different (usually more abstract) words.
make a virtue of necessity — To make the best of a difficult situation; to recast or portray an action or situation in which one has no alternatives as an action or situation which was deliberately chosen on its merits.
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/virtue