The Collaborative International Dictionary
Virtuous \Vir"tu*ous\ (?; 135), a. [OE. vertuous, OF. vertuos, vertuous, F. vertueux, fr. L. Virtuous. See Virtue, and cf. Virtuoso.]
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Possessing or exhibiting virtue. Specifically:
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Exhibiting manly courage and strength; valorous; valiant; brave. [Obs.]
Old Priam's son, amongst them all, was chiefly virtuous.
--Chapman. -
Having power or efficacy; powerfully operative; efficacious; potent. [Obs.]
--Chaucer.Lifting up his virtuous staff on high, He smote the sea, which calm['e]d was with speed.
--Spenser.Every virtuous plant and healing herb.
--Milton. -
Having moral excellence; characterized by morality; upright; righteous; pure; as, a virtuous action.
The virtuous mind that ever walks attended By a strong siding champion, conscience.
--Milton.
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Chaste; pure; -- applied especially to women.
Mistress Ford . . . the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband.
--Shak. [1913 Webster] -- Vir"tu*ous*ly, adv. -- Vir"tu*ous*ness, n.
Wiktionary
adv. In a virtuous manner.
WordNet
Usage examples of "virtuously".
No one could complain, Hymneth mused virtuously, that his dungeons suffered from overcrowding.
Each of these give and take equally, and each require a similar rule of life, which, as Hecaton observes, is hard to follow: indeed, it is difficult for us to attain to virtue, or even to anything that comes near virtue: for we ought not only to act virtuously but to do so upon principle.
Glover had promised virtuously and Becky had hugged him as Alden reread the shifty little pamphlet to determine what, in fact, had been agreed to.
None of my relations were rich enough to help me, and wishing to live virtuously above all things I subsisted for two years on the sale of my mother's furniture, boarding with a worthy woman who made her living by embroidery.
When I drive, I won't drink and drive, Glover had promised virtuously and Becky had hugged him as Alden reread the shifty little pamphlet to determine what, in fact, had been agreed to.
Beside him, Jorge drank from a great mug of wine, and Remigio, dressed like Bernard Gui, held a book shaped like a scorpion, virtuously reading the lives of the saints and passages from the Gospels, but they were stories about Jesus joking with the apostle, reminding him that he was a stone and on that shameless stone that rolled over the plain he would build his church, or the story of Saint Jerome commenting on the Bible and saying that God wanted to bare Jerusalem’s behind.
A diamond wedding ring flashes virtuously on her left hand, while her right hand clutches a small blue strip of paper.
Nothing like that nonsense from King Lemuel at the end of Proverbs: Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.
Jo was not in a good humor, and the perverse fit returned, but Amy, who had virtuously done her duty, kept her temper and pleased everybody, was in a most angelic frame of mind.
Like many men who take life easily, he had the knack of saying a home truth occasionally to those who felt themselves virtuously out of temper.
To combat this rotten-hearted sin of acedia or sloth, men should be diligent to do good works and manfully and virtuously to come by the determination to do well.
The clues to the identity of the stampeder or stampeders were so conspicuously absent that Storm heard some muttering to the effect that Krotag's men, now virtuously engaged in hunting the mounts, might well have hidden them in the first place, so they could claim the stallion and the three or four footsore mares Larkin promised them for their services.