virtus

Virtus, virtutis is third declension feminine, built on vir plus the abstract suffix -tus: what makes a man a man. In republican Latin that means courage in battle and effectiveness in public life, not gentleness, so Roman virtus is closer to "manly excellence" than to the English "virtue".

The philosophers stretch it towards moral goodness under Greek influence, and Christian Latin completes the move, adding a further sense in the plural: virtutes can mean mighty works or miracles, and it is also the name of one of the angelic orders. The trap is translating every virtus as "virtue". In a military narrative virtutes are brave deeds; in Seneca they are moral qualities; in the Vulgate they may be miracles. Note also virtute with an ablative of means, the standard "by his courage". Family: virtuosus is medieval. English virtue, virtuous, virtuoso, virtual; French vertu, Spanish virtud.