different between vertu vs virtue

English

Alternative forms

• vertù, virtu

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian virtù, †vertù (“moral worth, virtue (13th century); determination, perseverance, military valour (14th century); study of the liberal or fine arts; appreciation of, taste for, or expertise in the fine arts; objets d'art collectively (16th century)”); or from French vertu (“virtue”), ultimately from Latin virt?t-, virtus (“virtue”). Doublet of virtue.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /v???tu?/

Noun

vertu (uncountable)

1. (art, now historical) The fine arts as a subject of study or expertise; understanding of arts and antiquities. [from 18th c.]
   • 1789, John Moore, Zeluco, Valancourt 2008, p. 233:

     He engaged a certain Abbé of distinguished taste in virtù to attend them as their Ciceroné, and explain the antiquities brought from Herculaneum and Pompeia […] .

2. (art, now historical) Objets d'art collectively. [from 18th c.]
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or The White Whale^[3], Boston: The St. Botolph Society, 1922, OCLC 237074, page 423:

     Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited this wondrous whale, and saw the skull an altar, and the artificial smoke ascending from where the real jet had issued, I marvelled that the king should regard a chapel as an object of vertù.
3. Especially with reference to the writings of Machiavelli (1469–1527): the requisite qualities for political or military success; vitality, determination; power. [from 19th c.]
   • 1976, Niccolò Machiavelli; James B. Atkinson, transl., The Prince [The Library of Liberal Arts; LLA-172], Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill Company, ISBN 978-0-672-51542-2; reprinted as Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008, ISBN 978-0-87220-920-6, pages 69–70:

     All these connotations, even the positive and moral ones, are within the range of significations Machiavelli wants us to hear in “virtù.” For him the word suggests a kind of flexibility that can initiate effective, efficient, and energetic action based on a courageous assertion of the will and an ability to execute the products of one's own calculations. Such calculations are a significant adjunct to his ideas about virtù: they outline what might be called an internal or mental virtù.
4. Moral worth; virtue, virtuousness. [from 20th c.]

Translations

French

Etymology

From Middle French vertu, from Old French vertu, from Latin virt?s, virt?tem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /v??.ty/

Noun

vertu f (plural vertus)

1. virtue

Derived terms

• en vertu de
• évertuer
• femme de petite vertu
• vertu cardinale
• vertueux

Related terms

• virtuel
• virtuose

Further reading

• “vertu” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [f????tu?]

Verb

vertu

1. singular imperative of vertun
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of vertun

Middle English

Alternative forms

• virtu, vertue, vertew, virtew, verteu, virtue, wertue, vertuwe, vertwe, vertiwe, vertuu

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French and Anglo-Norman vertu, from Latin virt?tem, accusative of virt?s.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?v?rtiu?/, /?virtiu?/

Noun

vertu (plural vertues)

1. An ability, specialty, or feature:
   1. Medical or pharmaceutical ability (either generally or specifically)
   2. Such an ability that one possesses, has acquired or has learnt.
   3. A feature or quality which enables or allows a power or effect.
   4. A mechanism or ability that causes a bodily function or process to work.
2. Power, competence, ability; ability to effect behaviour or action:
   1. Divine power or capability; power effected from the heavens:
      1. (theology) The grace of God; divine aid or beneficence.
      2. The bestowing or granting of divine aid or beneficence.
      3. Divine ability transferred or placed in an object or thing.
      4. A specific instance or example of godly might or ability.
      5. (rare) A title or appellation granted or bestowed upon a divinity.
   2. The means or method that something is done with or through.
   3. The force of law (often as a means); legislative power or prerogative.
   4. The power to shield from harm, especially when of an occult nature.
   5. Astrological or cosmic influence; power believed to come from the stars.
   6. The property of being regarded as valuable or desirable; desirability.
   7. (rare) Overlordship or domination; political control or jurisdiction.
   8. (rare) The state of being meaningful; importance or notability.
   9. (rare) The property of causing power, effects or results.
3. Virtue (moral goodness; adherence to ethics):
   1. A particular attribute believed to be morally beneficial or good.
   2. The display of virtue or the example set by such a display.
   3. A moral directive or instruction or the body of them; morals.
   4. One's ability to act virtuously; moral fibre or capability.
4. One of several ranks of angels (being above "powers" and below "dominions").
5. A military troop or band; a group of combatants.
6. Willpower or mental fibre; one's ability to fulfill one's will.
7. Glory, honourableness, or knightliness; that expected by chivalry.
8. Sapience, wisdom, higher functioning or that which causes it.
9. Raw physical strength, exertion, or endurance.
10. The constitution, health, or animacy of a living thing.

Related terms

• vertual
• vertually
• vertulees
• vertuous
• vertuously
• vertuousnesse

Descendants

• English: virtue (obsolete vertue)
• Scots: virtue

References

• “vert?, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-02-09.

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French vertu.

Noun

vertu f (plural vertus)

1. virtue (goodness, moralness)

Descendants

• French: vertu

Old French

Etymology

From Latin virt?s, virt?tem.

Noun

vertu f (oblique plural vertus, nominative singular vertu, nominative plural vertus)

1. valour; honour; goodness; virtue

Synonyms

• proeche
• cortoisie

Descendants

• ? Middle English: vertu
  • Scots: virtue
  • English: virtue
• Middle French: vertu
  • French: vertu

English

Alternative forms

• vertu, vertuu (obsolete), vertue (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle English vertu, virtue, borrowed from Anglo-Norman vertu, virtu, from Latin virtus (“manliness, bravery, worth, moral excellence”), from vir (“man”). Doublet of vertu. See virile.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?v??t?u?/, /-tju?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?v?t?u/
• Hyphenation: vir?tue

Noun

virtue (countable and uncountable, plural virtues)

1. (uncountable) Accordance with moral principles; conformity of behaviour or thought with the strictures of morality; good moral conduct. [from 13th c.]
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, XV.1:

     There are a set of religious, or rather moral, writers, who teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery, in this world.
2. A particular manifestation of moral excellence in a person; an admirable quality. [from 13th c.]
   • 1766, Laurence Sterne, Sermon XLIV:

     Some men are modest, and seem to take pains to hide their virtues; and, from a natural distance and reserve in their tempers, scarce suffer their good qualities to be known […] .

3. Specifically, each of several qualities held to be particularly important, including the four cardinal virtues, the three theological virtues, or the seven virtues opposed to the seven deadly sins. [from 14th c.]
4. An inherently advantageous or excellent quality of something or someone; a favourable point, an advantage. [from 14th c.]
   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe:

     There were divers other plants, which I had no notion of or understanding about, that might, perhaps, have virtues of their own, which I could not find out.

   • 2011, The Guardian, Letter, 14 Mar 2011

     One virtue of the present coalition government's attack on access to education could be to reopen the questions raised so pertinently by Robinson in the 1960s […] .

5. A creature embodying divine power, specifically one of the orders of heavenly beings, traditionally ranked above angels and below archangels. [from 14th c.]
   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book X:

     Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers; / For in possession such, not only of right, / I call ye, and declare ye now […] .

6. (uncountable) Specifically, moral conduct in sexual behaviour, especially of women; chastity. [from 17th c.]
7. (obsolete) The inherent power of a god, or other supernatural being. [13th–19th c.]
8. The inherent power or efficacy of something (now only in phrases). [from 13th c.]
   • 1801, Robert Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer:

     There was a virtue in the wave;
     His limbs, that, stiff with toil,
     Dragg’d heavy, from the copious draught receiv’d
     Lightness and supple strength.

   • 2011, "The autumn of the patriarchs", The Economist, 17 Feb 2011:

     many Egyptians still worry that the Brotherhood, by virtue of discipline and experience, would hold an unfair advantage if elections were held too soon.

Synonyms

• douth (obsolete), thew
• See Thesaurus:goodness

Antonyms

• (excellence in morals): vice
• foible

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See also

• aretaic
• paragon

Further reading

• virtue in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• virtue in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• virtue on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Viruet

Middle English

Noun

virtue

1. Alternative form of vertu