Word.ws English Dictionary

virgin

UK/ˈvɜːd͡ʒɪn//ˈvɝd͡ʒɪn/

virgin noun: a person who has never had sexual intercourse, or (uncommonly) an animal that has never mated.

Noun (1)

virgin (plural virgins)

  1. A person who has never had sexual intercourse, or (uncommonly) an animal that has never mated.
    • On the other hand, the daughter of a clergyman repeatedly performed fellatio instead of genital intercourse so that she could remain a virgin.1970 Marriage in Life and Literature page 169
    • Could I convert virgins to nymphomania? Masturbators to rakehood? Faithful wives to adulteresses? Seducers to ascetics? Very doubtful. But possible.1971, George Cockcroft aka Luke Rhinehart, The Dice Man
  2. A person who has never engaged in any sexual activity at all.
  3. (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.
    • In its list of saints, the Catholic Church classifies St. Agnes, St. Maria Goretti, and St. Thérèse of Lisieux as virgins.
    • 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, Authorized Report of the Proceedings of the ... Congress of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States ..., page 109
  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. A female insect producing eggs from which young are hatched, though there has been no fecundation by a male; a parthenogenetic insect.

Adjective

virgin (comparative more virgin, superlative most virgin)

  1. (not comparable, usually) In a state of virginity; chaste, not having had sexual intercourse.
    • Innocence and virgin Modestie […] / That would be woo’d, and not unsought be won1667, 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...
    • 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.1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC
  2. Of a physical object, untouched.
    • The white cold virgin snow upon my heart / Abates the ardour of my liver.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...
    • 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.1932, Dorothy L Sayers, chapter 1, in Have his Carcase
  3. Not yet cultivated, explored, or exploited by humans or humans of certain civilizations.
    • virgin prairie
    • virgin ecosystem
    Synonyms:
    maiden
  4. Inexperienced.
    • The woman shook dangerously, an obvious virgin gunhandler.2014, Jeremiah Sanchez, Eden's Scarecrow: Real Eyes
  5. Of olive oil, obtained by mechanical means, so that the oil is not altered.
    • Wondering how some oil is somehow more virgin than regular virgin olive oil can be a real head-scratcher.2013, Cheryl Forberg, Cooking with Quinoa For Dummies, page 62
  6. (not comparable, usually) Of mixed drinks, not containing alcohol.
    • a virgin daiquiri

Proper noun capitalized: Virgin

(the) Virgin

  1. Synonym of Virgin Mary (“Mary, mother of Jesus”).
    • 'Behold,' said he, showing the picture of the Virgin, 'Behold her who protects us. Fear nothing : we shall reach Chang-hai, and we shall see our bishop.'
      He spoke truth : shortly they descried a Chinese junk. The master of it, on the promise of a good round sum, undertook to guide them to their...1848, “Letter of Andrew Kim-Hai-Kim, Corean Deacon, to the Reverend Doctor Libois, Procurator of Foreign Missions at Macao”, in United States Catholic Magazine and Monthly Review, volume 7, →OCLC...
    Synonyms:
    Virgin Mary
  2. The constellation and zodiacal sign Virgo.
    • In Autumpne, whan the sonne in vyrgyne / By radyante hete enryped hath our corne […]1499, John Skelton, The Bowge of Court
    • When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous Days, / And Libra weighs in equal Scales the Year […].a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Autumn”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    Maiden
  3. (rare) A surname.
  4. A tributary of the Colorado River in the states of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona in the United States.
  5. A town in Washington County, Utah.

Noun (2) capitalized: Virgin

Virgin (plural Virgins)

  1. A representation (picture, statue etc.) of Virgin Mary.
    • Of the forty-five floats presenting Virgins alone, two are preeminent and the subject of such veneration that even the most casual observer must reflect on the fact that Holy Week, which commemorates Christ's passion and death, has become in Spain a celebration in which he plays a secondary role...1968, James A. Michener, “Sevilla”, in Iberia, New York, NY: Dial Press, published 2015, →ISBN, page 317

virgin meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

virgin in Hindi

person who has never had sexual intercourse
कुँआरी kũārī, कुंवारी kumvārī

virgin in Tamil

கன்னி

virgin in Marathi

virgin
कन्या kanyā

virgin in Urdu

person who has never had sexual intercourse
کُن٘واری kũvārī
More languagesFewer languages
virgin in Bengali
কন্যা konna
virgin in Telugu
కన్య kanya
virgin in Malayalam
കന്നി kanni
virgin in Kannada
ಕನ್ಯೆ, ಕನ್ನಿಕೆ, ಕುಮಾರಿ, ಪರಿಶುದ್ಧ
virgin in Punjabi
کڑی kuṛī
virgin in Gujarati
વર્જિન
virgin in Odia
କୁମାରୀ
virgin in Sanskrit
अक्षता akṣatā, कन्या kanyā
virgin in Nepali
कन्या kanyā
virgin in Tagalog
putli
virgin in Arabic
بتول batul, بِكْر bikr, عَذْرَاء ʕaḏrāʔ
virgin in Indonesian
perawan, perjaka
virgin in Persian
دست نخورده dast naxorde
virgin in Thai
บริสุทธิ์ bɔɔ-rí-sùt, ซิง sing
virgin in Vietnamese
trinh nữ, trinh, tân
Dzongkha
ཁ་གསར kha gsar, གསར་གཙང gsar gtsang

Examples of virgin in a sentence

  • The virgin lands of the Americas were awaiting the Europeans.
  • 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.1974, The New Review, Volume 1, Part Page 15:
  • among students we studied , 60 % of the virgin females had had oral sex experience1987 Psychology and Personal Growthpage 208
  • A girl is a virgin until she experience penis-inside-vagina intercourse1988 page 186
  • 26 percent of virgin females have performed fellatio while 87 percent of nonvirgins have done so .1992, Cosmopolitan, volume 212, page 177:

All 40 example sentences with virgin

Synonyms of virgin

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of virgin

Forms of virgin

Noun
pluralvirgins
pluralVirgins
Adjective
comparativemore virgin
superlativemost virgin

Plural of virgin: virgins

Origin of virgin

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

From virgin, q.v. The sense of Mary, mother of Jesus, comes from the Christian belief in Jesus's virgin birth and Mary's freedom from sin. The river sense derives from the name of Thomas Virgin, a member of the first American party to see the river, led by Jedediah Smith in 1826. The town sense derives from the name of the river, along which it is located.

Words formed from virgin

Phrases with virgin

21 more phrasesFewer phrases

Questions about virgin

What does virgin mean?
Virgin means a person who has never had sexual intercourse, or (uncommonly) an animal that has never mated.
What is virgin in Hindi?
Virgin in Hindi is कुँआरी (kũārī), कुंवारी (kumvārī). See Virgin meaning in Hindi.
How do you use virgin in a sentence?
The virgin lands of the Americas were awaiting the Europeans.
What part of speech is virgin?
Virgin can be a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce virgin?
Virgin is pronounced /ˈvɜːd͡ʒɪn/ (UK).
What is the plural of virgin?
The plural of virgin is virgins.

Words near virgin in the dictionary

  1. Virgilian
  2. Virgilianism
  3. Virgilism
  4. virgilite
  5. virgils
  6. virgin
  7. virgin birth
  8. virgin births
  9. Virgin Caesar
  10. Virgin Caesars
  11. Virgin chub

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: virgin (page history and authors); Virgin (page history and authors); virgin (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); कन्या (Marathi) (page history and authors); কন্যা (Bengali) (page history and authors); കന്നി (Malayalam) (page history and authors); virgin (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); کڑی (Punjabi) (page history and authors); virgin (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); virgin (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); कन्या (Nepali) (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-us-virgin.ogg.

Cite this entry: “virgin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/virgin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.