Virtuous means behaving in a morally good way. A virtuous life, feel virtuous, virtuous conduct.
In serious use it is high praise from moral philosophy, where virtue ethics asks what a good person would do rather than what the rules say. In everyday use it is nearly always slightly ironic — feeling virtuous after going to the gym. A virtuous circle is the opposite of a vicious one, where each improvement feeds the next. Note virtue, virtuously; and virtuoso, which is the same root arriving through music.
1adjectivevirtuousBehaving in a morally good way.
“In the fairy tale, the virtuous sister is rewarded and the selfish one is punished.”
virtuous is a quality of moral goodness.
Latin virtus meant manliness and then excellence, from vir, a man. Virtue lost the gender on the way and virtuoso is the same word taken through Italian.
Latin
virtuōsus
Anglo-Norman
vertuous
Middle English
vertuous
English, today
virtuous
From Middle English vertuous, borrowed from Anglo-Norman vertuous, vertous, ultimately from Latin virtuōsus, from Latin virtūs. by surface analysis, virtue + -ous. a doublet of virtuoso and virtùous.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA