virgin

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virgin

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From Middle English virgine, from Old French virgine, from Latin virginem, accusative of virgō. Doublet of Virgo. Displaced native Old English fǣmne.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈvɜːd͡ʒɪn/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈvɝd͡ʒɪn/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)dʒɪn

virgin (plural virgins)

1. A person who has never had sexual intercourse, or an animal that has never mated.

   Synonyms: (dated; more commonly used for women) maiden, (slang, jocular) unicorn bait, (medical term; used for women only) virgo intacta, vestal

   • 1970 Marriage in Life and Literature page 169

     On the other hand, the daughter of a clergyman repeatedly performed fellatio instead of genital intercourse so that she could remain a virgin.

   • 1974, The New Review, Volume 1, Part Page 15:

     As the years went on she became extraordinarily effective at fellatio but, despite the fact that she was Mrs James Baylor, age 32, she was still a virgin.

   • 1987 Psychology and Personal Growthpage 208

     among students we studied , 60 % of the virgin females had had oral sex experience

   • 1988 page 186

     A girl is a virgin until she experience penis-inside-vagina intercourse

   • 1992, Cosmopolitan, volume 212, page 177:

     26 percent of virgin females have performed fellatio while 87 percent of nonvirgins have done so .

   • 1993 Santa Clara Review page 102

     I was a virgin. In my senior year of high school, I had experienced one inchoate handjob

   • 2004 The Handbook of Sexuality in Close Relationships page 67

     adolescents often define themselves as still a virgin while experimenting with oral sex

   • 2008, College Student Journal - Volume 42, Issues 1-2 - Page 183‎^[1]:

     middle-school girls sometimes look at oral sex as an absolute bargain - you don't get pregnant, they think you don't get diseases, you're still a virgin and you're in control

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Normandy SR-1:

     Shepard: Are you telling me you're a virgin?
     Liara: "Virgin" does not have the same connotation in my culture as in yours. But is is true I have never done this before.

   • 2012 Saying Yes! to Saying No page 21

     A Pike High School teen says most teens “think if you have oral sex you are still a virgin.

   • 2015 In Some Other World, Maybe: A Novel - Page 28

     she's never actually told the girls she's still a virgin—that the pinnacle of her sexual experience was giving a pretty cruddy handjob to Jared Wells

   • 2020 Page 1139

     It's really a miracle I'm still a virgin at twenty-one in the first place. I guess my talent at blowjobs and handjobs paid off.

2. A person who has never engaged in any sexual activity at all. [from mid-14th c.]^[1]
3. (Catholicism, Orthodoxy or historical) Someone vowed to virginity (usually a woman and often a consecrated virgin), or someone who died in defense of their virginity; (especially) one venerated as a saint. [from early 13th c.]^[2]

   In its list of saints, the Catholic Church classifies St. Agnes, St. Maria Goretti, and St. Thérèse of Lisieux as virgins.

   • 1894, Authorized Report of the Proceedings of the ... Congress of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States ..., page 109:

     This was the relation of the order of virgins to the Church from the latter part of the fourth to the beginning of the seventh century. The modern “sister” had no exact prototype in the Church of the first seven centuries.

   • 1894, John McClintock, James Strong, Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, page 26:

     The list of saints' days and festivals includes a number of the Romish holidays, properly so called, viz.: Lucian, priest and martyr, Jan. 8 ; Hilary, bishop and confessor, Jan. 13 ; Prisca, virgin and martyr, Jan. 18 ; Fabian, bishop and martyr, Jan. 20 ; Agnes, virgin and martyr, Jan. 21 […]

   • 1900, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church: Second Series, page 366:

     It is evident that those from the priesthood are chiefly taken from the order of virgins, or if not from virgins, at least from monks; or if not from the order of monks, then they are wont to be made priests who keep themselves from their wives […] .

   • 1994, Susanna Elm, `Virgins of God' : The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity, Clarendon Press, →ISBN, page 174:

     It ought to have become apparent, however, that the well-established order of widows was the model for the newly developing order of virgins. Both orders earned their legitimization from the way of life adopted by their members […]

   • 2007, Todd C. Penner, Caroline Vander Stichele, Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourses, BRILL, →ISBN, page 89:

     According to Jerome's account, a young man, who desired to seduce a consecrated virgin of the church, at first attempted to do so through the standard means of seduction: namely, “with touching, jokes, nods, whistles, and the rest” (Vit. Hil. 21.2670–75).

   • 2015, Anonymous, Aeterna Press, The Life and Miracles: Saint Philomena, Virgin and Martyr, Aeterna Press:

     Grant, O Lord, I beseech thee, that the Virgin and Martyr, St. Philomena, may solicit thy mercy for us. I implore her intercession, through the merits of her chastity, and by the glory that she gave to thy power, in dying for thee.

4. (informal) One who has never used or experienced a specified thing.

   I've never eaten tofu before—you could say I'm a tofu virgin.

5. Any of several species of gossamer-winged butterflies of the family Lycaenidae.
6. (entomology) A female insect producing eggs from which young are hatched, though there has been no fecundation by a male; a parthenogenetic insect.

virgin (comparative more virgin, superlative most virgin)

1. (usually not comparable) In a state of virginity; chaste, not having had sexual intercourse.
   • 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:

     Innocence and virgin Modestie […] / That would be woo’d, and not unsought be won

   • 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:

     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.

   • 1988, Hubert Monteilhet, Neropolis:

     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.

   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 314:

     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.

2. Of a physical object, untouched.

   Synonyms: brand new, pristine, unspoilt, untouched

   • 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]:

     The white cold virgin snow upon my heart / Abates the ardour of my liver.

   • 1932, Dorothy L Sayers, chapter 1, in Have his Carcase:

     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.

3. Not yet cultivated, explored, or exploited by humans or humans of certain civilizations.

   virgin prairie

   virgin ecosystem

   virgin forest

   virgin clay ― clay that has never been fired

   The virgin lands of the Americas were awaiting the Europeans.

   • 1650, Edward Williams, Virginia: More Especially the South Part Thereof:

     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.

   • 2019 January 20, John Naughton, quoting Shoshana Zuboff, “‘The goal is to automate us’: welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     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.

4. Inexperienced.
   • 2014, Jeremiah Sanchez, Eden's Scarecrow: Real Eyes:

     The woman shook dangerously, an obvious virgin gunhandler.

5. Of olive oil, obtained by mechanical means, so that the oil is not altered.
   • 2013, Cheryl Forberg, Cooking with Quinoa For Dummies, page 62:

     Wondering how some oil is somehow more virgin than regular virgin olive oil can be a real head-scratcher.

6. (usually not comparable) Of mixed drinks, not containing alcohol.

   a virgin daiquiri

• Girvin, Irving, Virnig, riving, viring

• vergin — popular, dated

Learned borrowing from Latin virgō, virginem. Doublet of vergură.

• IPA^(key): /virˈd͡ʒin/

virgin m or n (feminine singular virgină, masculine plural virgini, feminine and neuter plural virgine)

1. virgin, that which has not had sexual intercourse, chaste, maiden, virginal
2. untouched, clean, stainless, immaculate, pure

• cast, fecioară, fecioresc, feciorelnic, vergur, pur, curat, neatins

• virgină
• virginitate