virgin
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈvɜːd͡ʒɪn/
ipa: /ˈvɝd͡ʒɪn/
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)dʒɪn
Forms: form: more virgin
form: most virgin
Etymology: From Middle English virgine, from Old French virgine, from Latin virginem, accusative of virgō. Doublet of Virgo. Displaced native Old English fǣmne.
Senses: examples: text: Innocence and virgin Modestie […] / That would be woo’d, and not unsought be won
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
text: He was now about twenty-three years old, and, though still virgin, the sex instinct that Miriam had over refined for so long now grew particularly strong.
ref: 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:
text: From their embraces was born the handsome Actaeon, a naive boy, who had less excuse than other men, given that he was her son, for believing her to be a virgin. It's true that he was even more virgin than his mother.
ref: 1988, Hubert Monteilhet, Neropolis:
text: Helvidius […] took the plain meaning of scripture to say that Jesus patently had brothers and sisters, so therefore his mother, Mary, had enjoyed a normal family life rather than remaining perpetually virgin.
ref: 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 314:
glosses: In a state of virginity; chaste, not having had sexual intercourse.
examples: text: The white cold virgin snow upon my heart / Abates the ardour of my liver.
ref: 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
text: There is something about virgin sand which arouses all the worst instincts of the detective-story writer. One feels an irresisitible impulse to go and make footprints all over it.
ref: 1932, Dorothy L Sayers, chapter 1, in Have his Carcase:
synonyms: brand new
pristine
unspoilt
untouched
glosses: Of a physical object, untouched.
examples: text: virgin prairie
text: virgin ecosystem
text: virgin forest
text: virgin clay
translation: clay that has never been fired
english: clay that has never been fired
text: The virgin lands of the Americas were awaiting the Europeans.
text: The same bounty of Summer, the same milde remission of Winter, with a more virgin and unexhausted soyle being materiall arguments to shew that modesty and truth receive no diminution by the comparison.
ref: 1650, Edward Williams, Virginia: More Especially the South Part Thereof:
text: For today’s owners of surveillance capital the experiential realities of bodies, thoughts and feelings are as virgin and blameless as nature’s once-plentiful meadows, rivers, oceans and forests before they fell to the market dynamic.
ref: 2019 January 20, John Naughton, quoting Shoshana Zuboff, “‘The goal is to automate us’: welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism”, in The Guardian:
glosses: Not yet cultivated, explored, or exploited by humans or humans of certain civilizations.
examples: text: The woman shook dangerously, an obvious virgin gunhandler.
ref: 2014, Jeremiah Sanchez, Eden's Scarecrow: Real Eyes:
glosses: Inexperienced.
examples: text: Wondering how some oil is somehow more virgin than regular virgin olive oil can be a real head-scratcher.
ref: 2013, Cheryl Forberg, Cooking with Quinoa For Dummies, page 62:
glosses: Of olive oil, obtained by mechanical means, so that the oil is not altered.
examples: text: a virgin daiquiri
glosses: Of mixed drinks, not containing alcohol.
Derived terms: born-again virgin
extra virgin
extra-virgin
Fulham virgin
German virgin
half-virgin
skin virgin
sworn virgin
vestal virgin
virginal
virgin birth
virgin-born
virgin field
virgin forest
virgin honey
Virgin Islands
virginity
Virgin Mary
virgin of the sun
virgin oil
virgin olive oil
virgin parchment
virgin soil
virgin soil epidemic
virgin sulfur
virgin sulphur
virgin territory
virgin timber
virgin vault
virgin wool