virga

Borrowed from Latin virga (“rod”). Doublet of verge.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: vûrʹgə, IPA^(key): /ˈvɜːɡə/

virga (countable and uncountable, plural virgas or virgae)

1. (music) A type of note used in plainsong notation, having a tail and representing a single tone.
2. (meteorology, countable) A streak of rain or snow that is dissipated in falling and does not reach the ground, commonly appearing descending from a cloud layer.
   • 2003, Erik Larson, “Pilgrimage”, in The Devil in the White City, Vintage Books, page 78:

     Strong gusts of wind buffeted the train, and ghostly virga of ice followed it through the night.

3. (measurement, countable) A unit of length: a rod, pole or perch (5½ yards); or a unit of area: a square rod, pole or perch.

• (musical note): virgula

• virga on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• “virga” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2^nd Ed.; 1989]

• gravi-

• IPA^(key): (Central) [ˈbir.ɡə]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [ˈvir.ɡə]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ˈviɾ.ɣa]

virga f (plural virgues)

1. (meteorology) virga

Borrowed from Latin virgō +‎ -a.

• IPA^(key): /ˈvirɡa/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -irɡa
• Hyphenation: vir‧ga

virga (accusative singular virgan, plural virgaj, accusative plural virgajn)

1. virgin, virginal

virga

1. genitive singular of virk

• IPA^(key): /viʁ.ɡa/

virga f (plural virgas)

1. (meteorology) virga

Italian verga, French verge, Spanish verga, and Portuguese virga.

virga (plural virgas)

1. rod
2. (nautical) yard
3. (vulgar) dick

From Latin virga.

virga f

1. whip
2. strap

From Proto-Italic *wizgā, probably from Proto-Indo-European *wisgeh₂ (“flexible rod or stick”); possibly cognate with Proto-Germanic *wiskaz (“bundle of hay or straw, wisp”).^[1][2] The Proto-Indo-European term is sometimes taken as an extension of Proto-Indo-European *weys- (“to produce, procreate”), or alternatively from a stem *weyḱs- (see *weyḱ-). Regardless, it is probably related to viscum.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈwɪr.ɡa]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈvir.ɡa]

virga f (genitive virgae); first declension

1. twig, young shoot
2. rod, switch for flogging.
   • 4th-century CE, Jerome of Stridon (St. Jerome), Vulgate, Proverbs 26:3

     flagellum equō et cāmus asinō et virgā dorsō inprūdentium

     A whip for a horse, and a snaffle for an ass, and a rod for the back of fools.

     (trans.: Douay-Rheims Bible)

3. staff, walking stick
   • 8 AD . Fasti, Publius Ovidius Naso, Liber II, 703-704.

     Illic Tarquinius mandata latentia nati
     Accipit, et virga lilia summa metit.

     There Tarquinius is receiving secret mandates of the son
     And is knocking down with staff the tops of lilies.

4. wand (magical)
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 4.242–243:

     Tum virgam capit: Hāc animās ille ēvocat Orcō
     pallentīs, aliās sub Tartara trīstia mittit, [...].

     Then [Mercury] takes up his wand: With this he calls pale souls from Orcus, or sends others down to sorrowful Tartarus, [...].
     (Specifically, the caduceus that Mercury uses in his role as psychopompus.)

5. (figuratively, Late Latin, Medieval Latin) penis
   • ca. 540, Cassiodorus, On the Soul:

     sunt etiam singularia in medio constituta ne in unam partem praeiudicialiter vergentia alteram competenti decore nudarent: nasus, os, guttur, pectus, umbilicus, et genitalium virga descendens, quae laudabilia et honora monstrantur quando in medio locata consistunt.

     These [body parts] are one by one placed in the middle, because if they converged to the same place, one would deprive the honour of another part. The nose, mouth, throat, chest, navel, and the rod of the genitals show their merit and excellence by being placed in the middle.

6. (Medieval Latin) a unit of measurement, a rod; of either 3 feet in length, or 16½ feet, also known as a pole or perch; a square of land of the same length and breadth

First-declension noun.

• “virga”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “virga”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "virga", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• virga in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to beat with rods: virgis caedere
    
• “virga”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• R. E. Latham, D. R. Howlett, & R. K. Ashdowne, editors (1975–2013), “virga”, in Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources‎^[2], London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, →ISBN, →OCLC

• IPA^(key): /ˈbiɾɡa/ [ˈbiɾ.ɣ̞a]
• Rhymes: -iɾɡa
• Syllabification: vir‧ga

virga f sg

1. feminine singular of virgo