virginity

From Middle English virginite, from Old French virginite, from Latin virginitas. Equivalent to virgin +‎ -ity. Displaced native Old English mæġeþhād, originally meaning “girlhood.”

• IPA^(key): /və(ɹ)ˈd͡ʒɪnɪti/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪnɪti

virginity (countable and uncountable, plural virginities)

1. The state or characteristic of being a virgin.

   Synonyms: maidenhood, maidenhead, (female) maidhood, (euphemistic, general) V card, (informal) cherry

   to lose one's virginity

   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 128:

     She had a lot of dark hair pinned untidily back from a small well-formed brow, and her tilted nose and large embarrassed eyes had survived intact from the mistrusts and agitations of a schoolgirl, which maturity had striven to defeat by lengthening her chin and tightening her lips, while giving her skin the faintly furred matt surface of pickled virginity.