Definition of: virtue

(vûr′ch) noun
1. The disposition to conform to the law of right; moral excellence; rectitude.
2. The practice of moral duties and the abstinence from immorality and vice: a life devoted to virtue.
3. Sexual purity; chastity, especially in women.
4. A particular moral excellence, especially one of those considered to be of special importance and classified by Plato as the four cardinal virtues (justice, temperance, prudence, and fortitude), to which the Christian scholastic moralists added the three theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity or love). The latter are sometimes called the supernatural or Christian virtues and the former the natural virtues, and all seven are opposed to the Seven Deadly Sins.
5. Any admirable quality, merit, or accomplishment: Patience is a virtue.
6. Active quality; power; efficacy; especially, medical efficacy; potency.
7. The quality of manliness; strength; valor.
8. plural The fifth of the nine orders of angels in the celestial hierarchy.
—by (or in) virtue of By or through the fact, quality, force, or authority of. [<OF vertu <L virtus strength, bravery <vir man] Synonyms: chastity, duty, excellence, faithfulness, goodness, honesty, honor, integrity, justice, morality, probity, purity, rectitude, righteousness, rightness, truth, uprightness, virtuousness, worth, worthiness. Virtue is goodness that is victorious through trial, perhaps through temptation and conflict. Goodness may be much less than virtue, as lacking the strength that comes from trial and conflict, or it may be more than virtue, as rising above the possibility of temptation and conflict. Virtue is human; we do not predicate it of God. Morality is conformity to the moral law in action, whether in matters concerning ourselves or others, whether with or without right principle. Honesty and probity are used especially of one's relations to his fellow men, probity being to honesty much what virtue is to goodness; probity is honesty tried and proved, especially in those things that are beyond the reach of legal requirement; above the commercial sense, honesty may be applied to the highest truthfulness of the soul to and with itself. Integrity, in the full sense, is moral wholeness; when used of contracts and dealings, it has reference to inherent character and principle, and denotes more than conventional honesty. Purity is freedom from all admixture, especially of that which debases. Duty, the rendering of what is due to any person or in any relation, is the fulfilment of moral obligation. Rectitude and righteousness denote conformity to the standard of right; righteousness is used especially in the religious sense. Uprightness refers especially to conduct. Compare INNOCENCE, JUSTICE, RELIGION. Antonyms: evil, vice, viciousness, wrong. See synonyms for SIN.