Word.ws English Dictionary

make a virtue of necessity

make a virtue of necessity verb: to make the best of a difficult situation; to recast or portray an action or situation in which one has no alternatives as an action or situation which was deliberately chosen on its merits.

Verb

make a virtue of necessity (third-person singular simple present makes a virtue of necessity, present participle making a virtue of necessity, simple past and past participle made a virtue of necessity)

  1. (idiomatic) To make the best of a difficult situation; to recast or portray an action or situation in which one has no alternatives as an action or situation which was deliberately chosen on its merits.
    • Indeed, because you are a banish'd man,
      Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you:
      Are you content to be our general?
      To make a virtue of necessity
      And live, as we do, in this wilderness?c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • Nietzsche, as I gather, regarded the slave-morality as having been invented and imposed on the world by slaves making a virtue of necessity and a religion of their servitude.1906, George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara, Preface

Forms of make a virtue of necessity

third-person singular presentmakes a virtue of necessity
present participlemaking a virtue of necessity
past participlemade a virtue of necessity
pastmade a virtue of necessity

Questions about make a virtue of necessity

What does make a virtue of necessity mean?
Make a virtue of necessity means to make the best of a difficult situation; to recast or portray an action or situation in which one has no alternatives as an action or situation which was deliberately chosen on its merits.
What part of speech is make a virtue of necessity?
Make a virtue of necessity is a verb.
What is the past tense of make a virtue of necessity?
The past tense of make a virtue of necessity is made a virtue of necessity.

Words near make a virtue of necessity in the dictionary

  1. make a statement
  2. make a stick for one's own back
  3. make a stink
  4. make a time
  5. make a Virginia fence
  6. make a virtue of necessity
  7. make a wrong turn at Albuquerque
  8. make after
  9. make against
  10. make all the difference
  11. make all the running

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: make a virtue of necessity (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-make a virtue of necessity.ogg.

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