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n. Idiom: 1. a. Moral excellence and righteousness; goodness. b. An example or kind of moral excellence: the virtue of patience. 2. Archaic Chastity, especially in a woman. 3. A particularly efficacious, good, or beneficial quality; advantage: a plan with the virtue of being practical. 4. Effective force or power: believed in the virtue of prayer. 5. virtues Christianity The fifth of the nine orders of angels in medieval angelology. 6. Obsolete Manly courage; valor. by/in virtue of On the grounds or basis of; by reason of: well-off by virtue of a large inheritance. [Middle English vertu, from Old French, from Latin virtūs, manliness, excellence, goodness, from vir, man; see wī-ro- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] |
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