virility

Etymology

It is borrowed from French virilité, in Old French virilite, or directly borrowed from Latin virīlitās (“manhood”);^[2][3][4][5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Dictionary.com give the Latin alone.^[6][7] The Latin noun is formed from virīlis (“of a man, manly”), the source of virile, and the suffix -itās.^[6][7][2] virīlis is from vir (“man, hero”),^[4][8] from Proto-Indo-European *wi-ro- (“man”).^[4] Klein lists the cognates of the Latin word, among them Old English wer (“man”), Old High German wer, Old Norse verr and Lithuanian výras.^[5] The OED compares Italian virilità and Spanish virilidad.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The time of life when a man is in full vigour; mature manhood: 1586, in T. Bowes's translation of La Primaudaye's French Academy.^[2][6] Etymonline dates the word to the 1580s,^[4] and Dictionary.com to 1580–90.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Further senses followed within a few years: the male generative organs (1598 to 1757, now obsolete), and manly strength and vigour of action or thought (1603, in Holland's translation of Plutarch), which Morley had already applied to music in 1597.^[2] The power of procreation is recorded from 1721 in the OED, with an obsolete plural use in Browne from 1646,^[2] and Etymonline dates this sense to the 1590s;^[4] Johnson (1755) gave it as his second sense, after "manhood; character of man", with a quotation from Browne.^[9] Masculine vigour in general appears in 1890,^[2] and since 1921 the word could also mean virile men collectively.^[2] The Shorter Oxford now marks the first sense, the period of manhood, as rare,^[3] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged contrasts it with muliebrity.^[6]

Timeline

• 1586 – the period of mature manhood.^[2][6]
• 1597 – vigour or force, in a transferred use.^[2]
• 1598 – the male generative organs (obsolete by 1757).^[2]
• 1603 – manly strength and vigour of action or thought.^[2][3]
• 1646 – in the plural, the power of procreation (obsolete by 1650).^[2]
• 1721 – the power of procreation, capacity for sexual intercourse.^[2]
• 1890 – masculine vigour, masculinity.^[2]
• 1921 – virile men collectively.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Male sexual potency; the power to father children.^[3][6][2]
2. Strength, energy and vigour thought of as typically masculine: Critics praised the virility of the young composer's early symphonies.^[6][3][2]
3. Masculinity; the quality of being virile.^[6][2]
4. (rare) The period of mature manhood.^[3][6][2]
5. (obsolete, 1598–1757) The male sexual organs.^[2][3]

Word family

• nonvirility
• ultravirility

Related words

• virile
• werewolf

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.