What's the difference between pious and virtuous?

Pious


Definition:

  • (a.) Of or pertaining to piety; exhibiting piety; reverential; dutiful; religious; devout; godly.
  • (a.) Practiced under the pretext of religion; prompted by mistaken piety; as, pious errors; pious frauds.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) © Focus Features Where Dolly, a kind, pious, modest, anxious figure, the mother of five living and two dead children, belongs very much to the old Russia, Stiva Oblonsky, her husband, is recognisable as the caricature of a modern man.
  • (2) It is of course important that migrants are not scapegoated; but such pious deceit from comfortable middle-class commentators can only provoke the unemployed, the low-paid and the homeless.
  • (3) Still, I like to believe that these small-scale ventures, too, make some contribution to a conversation without limits or proscriptions; the sine qua non of the sort of society that knows to keep the solemn and the pious at bay.
  • (4) Many Isis fighters are newly converted, newly pious ... these men have grown a beard in three months and they don’t give Islam time to be understood.” He is tired of having to defend his religion against bigots who take these instant Islamists to be the authentic representation of Islam.
  • (5) The president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, made it a vote about his “way”, and found himself rejected by a large group of “democrat” voters – and almost completely abandoned by his long-term allies: pious Kurds.
  • (6) In that same National season, he teamed with Simon Callow (as Face) and Josie Lawrence (as Doll Common) in a co-production by Bill Alexander for the Birmingham Rep of Ben Jonson’s trickstering, two-faced masterpiece The Alchemist ; he was a comically pious Subtle in sackcloth and sandals.
  • (7) Both harangued Brian from the outset calling it "a squalid little film" and "tenth rate"; no amount of measured argument on the Pythons part would dissuade the pious double act of their firmly held belief that Life of Brian mocked Christ.
  • (8) He's obviously a true believer in democracy – which sounds rather pious, but it's a fact.
  • (9) Tories are furious and bitter at being abandoned by the Lib Dems, whom they loathe anyway as a bunch of pious creeps.
  • (10) Those who claim that conversion or rejection of faith is punishable by death are effectively - and this ought to give their pious hearts pause for reflection - usurping powers reserved solely for God.
  • (11) Burns is, according to the poet Edwin Muir, "to the respectable, a decent man; to the Rabelaisian, bawdy; to the sentimentalist, sentimental; to the socialist, a revolutionary; to the nationalist, a patriot; to the religious, pious …" So no doubt, this January at the start of referendum year , even diehard unionists will be searching around for words of his that seem to support their position and, where they can extrapolate them, sprinkling them around with abandon to salt their haggis, neeps and tatties at Burns suppers the length and breadth of the land.
  • (12) We simply cannot wait in the pious hope that short-term-minded governments and enterprises will save us There is a clear answer to the question of each country’s reasonable share, based on a permissible quantum of emissions per capita that never threatens the perilous 2C mean temperature increase that would profoundly and irreversibly affect all life on earth.
  • (13) The reticent, pious, even priggish character was too alien, possibly repellant, for the writer and director of the 1999 film version, Patricia Rozema, who drew on Austen's letters to fabricate another creature altogether.
  • (14) Against this background it is very simple to make such pious and ill-considered statements as, “If they don’t want to go to jail, they shouldn’t break the law!” Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘We represent only 2.4% of the Australian population yet account for more than 25% of the prison population.’ Photograph: AAP Against this background, it is very simple to impose policies for Indigenous Australians that do not signal any sense of belief in our humanity and own capacity to rise above the challenges we are confronted by.
  • (15) What we have too in Sister Cristina is the singing nun as a cultural idea: the pious, virginal creature emerging from behind strict convent walls to charm the world with the power of her voice.
  • (16) Early speculation suggested the twice-divorced businessman – who once cited the verse “two Corinthians” rather than the correct “second Corinthians” during his campaign and said he had never sought forgiveness for his sins – could not capture the vote of the pious.
  • (17) Like The Guard, Calvary is tartly, tightly scripted; unlike it, it's a pious piece of work, a serious investigation of expiation.
  • (18) This pious art lover could have a career in slapstick if she wants, for her comic destruction of a work of art bears comparison with Rowan Atkinson giving Whistler's Mother a badly drawn cartoon face in the film Bean .
  • (19) Sometimes we are not quite sure that this way of life is pious enough.
  • (20) "I saw Jonathan, who comes over as a very nice, humble, pious person," said Selby.

Virtuous


Definition:

  • (a.) Possessing or exhibiting virtue.
  • (a.) Exhibiting manly courage and strength; valorous; valiant; brave.
  • (a.) Having power or efficacy; powerfully operative; efficacious; potent.
  • (a.) Having moral excellence; characterized by morality; upright; righteous; pure; as, a virtuous action.
  • (a.) Chaste; pure; -- applied especially to women.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) To stand virtuously in the grandstand looking down upon a world whose best efforts in inevitably imperfect times can never match your own exalted standards is a definition of irrelevance, not virtue.
  • (2) We insist that its citizens ought to be more virtuous versions of ourselves; when they fall short, our rage is terrible.
  • (3) Louise Glück’s prose-poem collection, Faithful and Virtuous Night , won for poetry.
  • (4) The zesty, citrus whiff of oranges freshens up the January kitchen, drawing a line under heavy celebratory food, and lighting up the virtuous, but enticing path to a lighter, healthier diet.
  • (5) In theory, there is a virtuous commercial circle, with programming created and owned in-house, performing well on ITV, then making megabucks when it is sold around the world.
  • (6) Twenty-First Century Populism , edited by Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell, describes how populism appeals to voters because it "pits a virtuous and homogenous people against… dangerous 'others' who together are depicted as depriving the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity and voice".
  • (7) The virtuous part is expected to be sold to a private bidder after the general election.
  • (8) They were the virtuous rebels who rose in the name of all kinds of folk gurus and deities, including Mao Zedong, to fight corrupt officials and evil rulers, and restore morality.
  • (9) Jen (from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) In Ang Lee's gravity-defying martial arts romp, women take most of the major roles, virtuous or villainous.
  • (10) In this context, treating human immunodeficiency virus-infected persons is a virtuous act, which meets both patients' and society's health needs and affirms the moral mission of health care.
  • (11) If the reaction to another Gawker story last year, since taken down, that possibly outed an executive is any indication, most news outlets already think of themselves as better and more virtuous than Gawker – they would never stoop so low as to publish a sex tape in the first place.
  • (12) Assuming that caring is a virtue, it is concluded that ethically virtuous nurses must possess the caring attributes and demonstrate caring actions.
  • (13) It is a virtuous circle, on which the quality of teaching and the rigour of courses has no bearing.
  • (14) The expansive, leisurely poems in the new collection, Faithful and Virtuous Night, by Louise Glück, are interspersed with one-paragraph prose-poems – miniature parables often framed as personal anecdotes, like this week's choice, A Work of Fiction.
  • (15) Premier League locked in to virtuous circle and likely to stay on its perch | Sean Ingle Read more The 20-year-old, who moved to the Stade Vélodrome last summer from Nantes for £1m, has attracted attention for his performances this season despite his club struggling in mid-table in Ligue 1.
  • (16) These two second-order factors of Net Affect and Authoritarian Virtuousness are further discussed in light of their intrafactor and interfactor relationships.
  • (17) And how can we create a virtuous cycle whereby better employment practices and opportunities for career development feed into higher productivity?
  • (18) Business, the media and, ultimately, individuals are caught – and the un-virtuous circles continue.
  • (19) "You could put everything back into a community and create a virtuous cycle."
  • (20) In other times and places, anger is seen not just as part and parcel of life, but even as a virtuous emotion.