Definition of virtue

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vir·tue    (vûrch) KEY 

NOUN:

1. 1. Moral excellence and righteousness; goodness.
   2. An example or kind of moral excellence: the virtue of patience.
2. Chastity, especially in a woman.
3. A particularly efficacious, good, or beneficial quality; advantage: a plan with the virtue of being practical.
4. Effective force or power: believed in the virtue of prayer.
5. virtues Christianity The fifth of the nine orders of angels in medieval angelology.
6. Obsolete Manly courage; valor.

IDIOM:
by/in virtue of

On the grounds or basis of; by reason of: well-off by virtue of a large inheritance.

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ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English vertu, from Old French, from Latin virts, manliness, excellence, goodness, from vir, man; see w-ro- in Indo-European roots