Virtual means it exists on a screen and on a server somewhere, not as a thing you can put your hand on. A virtual meeting is nine faces in nine rectangles on a laptop. A virtual tour of a museum you have never flown to, a virtual pet, a virtual keyboard that appears on glass.
The word also does a second job that has nothing to do with computers: virtual means almost, in effect, in everything but name. A firm with ninety-five percent of the market has a virtual monopoly, and a motorway with three cars an hour is at a virtual standstill. That is where the adverb virtually comes from, so virtually finished means all but finished. Keep virtual apart from virtuous, which is about being morally good, and remember that its true opposite is physical or actual. In computing it locks onto nouns: virtual reality, virtual machine, virtual assistant.
1adjectivevirtualExisting on computers or over a network rather than as a physical object or place.
“The whole course is virtual, so students log in from six countries.”
2adjectiveeffectiveAlmost what is named; true in effect if not in name.
“By August the party held a virtual monopoly on every seat in the north.”
3adjectivephysicsIn physics, formed by rays of light that only appear to meet, as with the image in a mirror.
“A flat mirror gives a virtual image standing the same distance behind the glass.”
Also accepted in games: digital
Virtual came through Old French vertüal from Medieval Latin virtuālis, which meant having the power to produce an effect. Behind that stands Latin virtūs, goodness and manliness, from vir, an adult male, the same root that gives virtue and virtuoso. So a virtual thing started life as one with the power of the real thing but not its substance, which is a fair description of a video call.
Proto-Indo-European
*weyh₁-
Middle French
virtuel
French
virtuel
Proto-Indo-European
*wiHrós — man
Latin
virtūs — goodness, virtue; manliness, virility
Medieval Latin
virtuālis — of or pertaining to potency or power; having power to produce an effect, potent; morally virtuous
Old French
vertüal
Middle English
vertual
English, today
virtual
Built from
The adjective is derived from Middle English vertual, virtualvirtuall, virtualle, from Old French vertüal, vertüelle (modern French virtuel), or from their etymon Medieval Latin virtuālis (“of or pertaining to potency or power; having power to produce an effect, potent; morally virtuous”), from Latin virtūs (“goodness, virtue; manliness, virility”) (from vir (“adult male, man”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European wiHrós (“man”), possibly from weyh₁- (“to chase, hunt, pursue”)) + -tūs) + -ālis, modelled after virtuōsus (“good, virtuous”). mechanics is borrowed from French virtuel, from Middle French virtuel, from Old French vertüal, vertüelle: see above. The noun is derived from the adjective.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA