virtue.

1. Moral goodness in conduct or character, or a particular quality regarded as morally good.

2. A useful, admirable, or beneficial feature of something, or the benefit it brings.

3. Sexual purity or chastity, especially as judged by traditional social or religious expectations.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• moral virtue
• a life of virtue
• cultivate virtue
• a paragon of virtue
• virtues and vices

On the page

She returned the missing wages because she valued virtue more than praise.

He counted honesty among his virtues, though his friends found him painfully blunt.

The story contrasts his public reputation for virtue with his private cruelty.

The stove’s chief virtue was that it could be repaired with ordinary tools.

I saw little virtue in delaying the meeting once everyone had arrived.

Usage notes

Noun. Plural: virtues. Uncountable virtue refers to moral goodness generally; countable a virtue and virtues refer to particular moral qualities. The advantage sense permits both a virtue of something and virtue in doing something. Chastity and inherent power are often uncountable, though particular powers can be described as virtues. The angelic-order sense conventionally uses the plural virtues. Virtuous is the related adjective and virtuously the adverb; virtue has no verb inflections. Established phrase: by virtue of means because of, as a result of, or through the authority of; it is formal and does not imply moral goodness. Pattern: by virtue of + noun phrase or -ing form. Original example: By virtue of her role as treasurer, she could inspect the accounts. This phrase is documented as usage of virtue, not created as a second database entry or used to classify the single word as an idiom. Register: neutral. Commonness: common in discussions of moral character and advantages; chastity, inherent-power and valor uses are older or less common; the angelic-order use is specialized (dictionary-informed qualitative editorial estimate; not a measured frequency).