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.