Etymologically
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virtual

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 16 October 2026 at 04:32. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /ˈvɜː.tʃu.əl/, /ˈvɜː.tju.əl/, US /ˈvɝː.tʃu.əl/[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English vertual, borrowed from Medieval Latin virtuālis,[2][3][4] from virtūs (“excellence, potency, efficacy”), literally “manliness” (see virtue),[3][2] suggested by Late Latin virtuosus.[5][6] The Middle English spelling followed vertu “virtue”, and the Latinate virtual is from about 1400.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Possessing physical virtues or powers, capable of exerting influence by inherent qualities: before 1398, in Trevisa, in Barnhart and the OED.[2][7] It preserves the old sense of virtue, “efficacy, power to do”.[3]

Semantic evolution

Morally virtuous is from about 1425, now obsolete,[7] and capable of producing an effect, potent, from 1432–50.[7] Being something in essence or effect, though not in fact or in name, is from the mid-15th century in Etymonline, probably by way of that sense,[3] and 1654 in Jeremy Taylor in Barnhart and the OED.[2][7] In optics a virtual image or focus, an apparent one, is from 1704,[7][3] and in dynamics virtual velocity from 1818.[7] In computing, “not physically existing but made to appear by software” is from 1959, first of memory,[3] and virtual reality, shopping and currency followed.[8]

Timeline

  • 1398 – possessing physical powers.[7][2]
  • c. 1425 – morally virtuous (obsolete).[7]
  • 1654 – so in effect though not in name.[2][7]
  • 1704 – a virtual image, in optics.[7]
  • 1959 – in computing.[3]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Being so in effect, though not in name or in fact: a virtual stranger.
  2. (computing) Made to appear by software; simulated: virtual reality.
  3. Carried out over the internet: a virtual meeting.
  4. (physics) Of an image or focus, apparent rather than real.

Word family

  • virtuality
  • virtually
  • virtual focus
  • virtual image
  • virtual machine
  • virtual memory
  • virtual particle
  • virtual reality
  • virtue
  • virtuous
  • virtuoso
  • virile

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins