noun
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a loud, violent, and ill-tempered woman; scold; shrew
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archaic a strong, brave, or warlike woman; amazon
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of virago
before 1000; Middle English, Old English < Latin virāgō, equivalent to vir man + -āgō suffix expressing association of some kind, here resemblance
Explanation
A virago is a loud, bossy woman, like your next door neighbor who is always yelling at kids to get off her lawn. You can use the noun virago when you're describing a particularly mean and scolding woman. It's not a compliment to call someone a virago, although its origins are much nobler than the shrewish, screechy character it implies today. Originally, a virago was a brave or heroic woman. The root of virago is the Latin word for "man," vir. In other words, a virago used to mean a woman who seemed manly or virile.
Vocabulary lists containing virago
Twelfth Night
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"Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving
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"American History" by Judith Ortiz Cofer
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It was someone laying down the law — without worrying that a man would label her a virago or harridan or termagant.
From New York Times ● Dec. 7, 2019
Yet, tellingly, this virago is also the creation of a male writer-director.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 11, 2018
“HLN’s virago of vengeance,” the New York Times dubbed her in 2011.
From Slate ● Oct. 13, 2016
“Jackson is an awesome virago who delivers her lines like bayonet thrusts,” Time magazine drama critic T.E.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 14, 2016
I find there is spirit, courage, a strong will; obstinacy—impracticability—no milksop—a bit of a virago!
From Willing to Die by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Wodehouse still lives in the same cloud-cuckoo land of titled old blighters, muscular viragoes and fluffy-minded bachelors that he first celebrated 67 books ago.
From Time Magazine Archive
Hagen can be one of the stage's great ripsnorting viragoes, as she demonstrated last year off-Broadway in the title role of Shaw's Mrs.Warren's Profession.
From Time Magazine Archive
Our ladies can give their dearest up to death when the State calls on them, but they will never be like the odious viragoes of the Roman circus.
From The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions Joints In Our Social Armour by James Runciman
And ever an anon, with crapulous glee, Grinned homage to viragoes on the shore.
From Adventures in Criticism by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
Well, it took me five minutes, and perhaps ten, to separate those two viragoes.
From Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant
When transgender entered the popular lexicon through the efforts of activists and aid organizations in the mid-1990s, it replaced transsexual, which had replaced transvestite, which was what they called cross-dressers and before that viragos.
From Slate ● May 14, 2018
The study of these viragos scales down our rating of the master.
From Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 04 Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters by Elbert Hubbard
No, no; 'goodness,' as you call it, don't depend on little Miss Joy, or wickedness on sharp-tempered viragos like you say your aunt is.
From Little Miss Joy by Emma Marshall
Even the honest friendship between him and the remarkable woman he calls his "viragos" gives him many a pleasant hour.
From A Woman-Hater by Charles Reade
She felt her courage leaving her—she must be rid of this fearful band of viragos at any price.
From Joseph II. and His Court by L. (Luise) Mühlbach
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
