Virt'ūe, n.
(18), n. [Fr. vertu, Pr. vertut, virtut, Sp. virtud, Pg. virtude, It. virtù, Lat. virtus, strength, courage, excellence, virtue, from vir, a man.]
Sense 1. Manly strength or courage; bravery; spirit; valor. [Obs.]
Built too strong For force or virtue ever to expugn. Chapman.
Sense 2. Active quality or power; capacity or power adequate to the production of a given effect; strength; force; efficacy.
Jesus, knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about. Mark v. 30.
She moves the body which she doth possess, Yet no part toucheth, but by virtue’s touch. Davies.
A man was driven to depend for his security against misunderstanding, upon the pure virtue of his syntax. De Quincey.
Sense 3. Natural excellence; that which constitutes value and merit; worth.
In the Greek poets, as also in Plautus, the economy of poems is better observed than in Terence, who thought the sole grace and virtue of their fable the sticking in of sentences. B. Jonson.
Sense 4. Moral excellence; that which gives moral merit and value; practice of duty and abstinence from vice; morality; uprightness.
Virtue only makes our bliss below. Pope.
If there’s a Power above us,— And that there is all nature cries aloud Through all her works,—he must delight in virtue. Addison.
Sense 5. A particular moral excellence; as, the virtue of temperance, of charity, and the like. “The very virtue of compassion.” Shak. “Remember all his virtues.” Addison.
Sense 6. Especially, female chastity; virginity; purity.
H. I believe the girl has virtue.
M. And if she has, I should be the last man in the world to attempt to corrupt it. Goldsmith.
Sense 7. One of the orders of the celestial hierarchy; especially, in works of art, an order of angels, generally represented in complete armor, bearing pennons and battle-axes. “Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.” Milton.
Cardinal virtues. See CARDINAL.—In or by virtue of, through the force of; by authority of. “He used to travel through Greece by virtue of this fable, which procured him reception in all the towns.” Addison. “This they shall attain, partly in virtue of the promise of God, and partly in virtue of piety.” Atterbury.—Theological virtues, the three virtues, faith, hope, and charity.