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virginal

UK/ˈvɜː(ɹ)d͡ʒɪnəl/US/ˈvɜː(ɹ)d͡ʒɪnəl/
adjectiveC2Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,833 of 15,258neutral

Virginal means pure and untouched. Virginal white, a virginal landscape, virginal snow.

Applied to landscapes and snow it means untouched and is neutral. Applied to people it carries a whole history of judgement about women in particular. A virginal is also a small keyboard instrument of the sixteenth century.

Definitions of virginal

  1. 1adjectivevirginalPure and untouched.C2

    “The explorers entered a virginal forest where no road had ever been built.”

virginal is a quality.

Also accepted in games: virgin

Where it comes from

Latin virginalis comes from virgo, a maiden. The instrument's name is probably from young women playing it.

  1. Latin

    virginālis

  2. Middle French

    virginal

  3. Middle English

    virginal

  4. English, today

    virginal

From Middle English virginal, from Middle French virginal, from Latin virginālis. The musical instrument is probably so called from being played by young girls.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

virginal in the wild

  • The term denotes the whole family of similar plucked-keyboard instruments, including the smaller virginals, muselar, and spinet.

    Harpsichord

  • The virginals is a keyboard instrument of the harpsichord family.

    Virginals

  • William Tisdale also written Tisdall was an English musician and composer of the virginal school.

    William Tisdale

  • Rectangular octave virginal is a 16th-century virginal in the style of Samuel Biedermann the Elder, probably made in Augsburg about 1600.

    Rectangular octave virginal

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.