Vir"tue (?; 135), n. [OE. vertu, F.
vertu, L. virtus strength, courage, excellence, virtue, fr.
vir a man. See Virile, and cf. Virtu.]
1. Manly strength or courage; bravery; daring; spirit;
valor. [Obs.] Shak.
Built too strong
For force or virtue ever to expugn.
Chapman.
2. Active quality or power; capacity or power
adequate to the production of a given effect; energy; strength; potency;
efficacy; as, the virtue of a medicine.
Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had
gone out of him, turned him about.
Mark v. 30.
A man was driven to depend for his security against
misunderstanding, upon the pure virtue of his syntax.
De Quincey.
The virtue of his midnight agony.
Keble.
3. Energy or influence operating without contact of
the material or sensible substance.
She moves the body which she doth possess,
Yet no part toucheth, but by virtue's touch.
Sir. J.
Davies.
4. Excellence; value; merit; meritoriousness;
worth.
I made virtue of necessity.
Chaucer.
In the Greek poets, . . . 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.
5. Specifically, moral excellence; integrity of
character; purity of soul; performance of duty.
Virtue only makes our bliss below.
Pope.
If there's Power above us,
And that there is all nature cries aloud
Through all her works, he must delight in virtue.
Addison.
6. A particular moral excellence; as, the
virtue of temperance, of charity, etc. "The very
virtue of compassion." Shak. "Remember all his
virtues." Addison.
7. Specifically: Chastity; purity; especially, the
chastity of women; virginity.
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.
8. pl. One of the orders of the celestial
hierarchy.
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues,
powers.
Milton.
Cardinal virtues. See under Cardinal,
a. -- 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 made by God, and
partly in virtue of piety." Atterbury. -- Theological
virtues, the three virtues, faith, hope, and charity. See
1 Cor. xiii. 13.