VIRILE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does virile mean? 

• VIRILE (adjective)
  The adjective VIRILE has 3 senses:

1. characterized by energy and vigor

2. characteristic of a man

3. (of a male) capable of copulation

  Familiarity information: VIRILE used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VIRILE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Characterized by energy and vigor

Context example:

a new and virile leadership

Similar:

strong (having strength or power greater than average or expected)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Characteristic of a man

Synonyms:

male; manful; manlike; manly; virile

Context example:

manly sports

Similar:

masculine (associated with men and not with women)

Derivation:

virility (the trait of being manly; having the characteristics of an adult male)

Sense 3

Meaning:

(of a male) capable of copulation

Synonyms:

potent; virile

Derivation:

virility (the masculine property of being capable of copulation and procreation)

 Context examples 

It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was turned towards us.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was finding speech, and all the beauty and wonder that had been pent for years behind his inarticulate lips was now pouring forth in a wild and virile flood.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

There was something so big and arresting and virile in the man that the clatter and shouting died gradually away before his commanding gesture and his masterful eyes.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent besides: she showed virile force in the contest—more than once she almost throttled him, athletic as he was.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He was a type and leader of a strange breed of men which has vanished away from England—the full-blooded, virile buck, exquisite in his dress, narrow in his thoughts, coarse in his amusements, and eccentric in his habits.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But you couldn't get along without masters of some sort, and there arose a new set of masters—not the great, virile, noble men, but the shrewd and spidery traders and money-lenders.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Through the thin haze of my cigar-smoke I noted the details of a face which was already familiar to me from many photographs—the strongly-curved nose, the hollow, worn cheeks, the dark, ruddy hair, thin at the top, the crisp, virile moustaches, the small, aggressive tuft upon his projecting chin.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For an instant, in his earnest gaze and reverent manner, we seemed to catch a glimpse of the deeper, truer Nelson, the man of the Eastern counties, steeped in the virile Puritanism which sent from that district the Ironsides to fashion England within, and the Pilgrim Fathers to spread it without.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The ale-drinking, the rude good-fellowship, the heartiness, the laughter at discomforts, the craving to see the fight—all these may be set down as vulgar and trivial by those to whom they are distasteful; but to me, listening to the far-off and uncertain echoes of our distant past, they seem to have been the very bones upon which much that is most solid and virile in this ancient race was moulded.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)