What's the difference between righteous and virtuous?

Righteous


Definition:

  • (a.) Doing, or according with, that which is right; yielding to all their due; just; equitable; especially, free from wrong, guilt, or sin; holy; as, a righteous man or act; a righteous retribution.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This may go some way to explaining why, even as his approval ratings fall off a cliff and some call for his impeachment, he sees no reason to course-correct, as he and a noisy caucus around him seem to become ever more self-righteous.
  • (2) [When he comes to a gig] it’s like a mate at school turning up.” Watson’s record of campaigns against phone hacking and establishment child abuse have also won him cross-party admiration and a public profile as a righteous crusader.
  • (3) Grass's new collection of poetry, Eintagsfliegen , published in Germany last week, describes Vanunu as a "role model and hero of our time" who "hoped to serve his country by helping to bring the truth to light", and calls on Israelis to "recognise ... as righteous" the man "who remained loyal to his country all those years", according to German reports .
  • (4) They – we – had come by bus, plane, train, car and hitch-hiker's thumb to demonstrate to ourselves and a watching world that there was a better, more righteous America than the Birmingham of Bull Connor who had set the dogs and fire hoses on black children.
  • (5) The Tea Party represents a serious strand in American public life – old-world fundamentalist in its exclusivity, self-righteousness and religious zeal.
  • (6) They are so convinced of their righteousness they cannot admit their faults.
  • (7) Skylight gives voice to private enterprise’s self-righteous hostility towards those who work in the public services.
  • (8) The FBI are sceptical that Pyongyang was responsible, and the government there denies that it had any involvement, even if it describes the hack as “a righteous deed”.
  • (9) With it would come “the Mother of Planes, which would hover over space for up to a year and then swoop down to rescue righteous black Muslims from the great white wasteland”.
  • (10) They converted and started to insult us, saying we do not believe in the oneness of Allah because of our love for saints.” Every Pakistani knows these preaching, self-righteous conservatives ... but you never expect them to indulge in violence Nadeem Farooq Paracha Like so many others, the Malik family were helped along in their religious journey by the experience of living as guest workers in the oil-rich Arab world.
  • (11) For many, fantasy is typified by The Lord of the Rings ; Miéville worked up a righteous fury against Tolkien's "cod-Wagnerian pomposity, his small-minded and reactionary love for hierarchical status-quos", calling him "the wen on the arse of fantasy literature" and setting out to "lance the boil".
  • (12) Righteous indignation was tweeted and retweeted, celebrities piled on the pressure, pundits sharpened their quills.
  • (13) Increasingly, the paranoid defensiveness of the zealots cannot be reconciled with the righteous anger of those who believe every superlative performance must be suspect.
  • (14) True, as we were reminded last week, members of the EDL have miraculously survived all such conditioning; equally, these extremists now risk being righteously snubbed in Mens' Socks.
  • (15) It is, I imagine, the same sentiment a potential jihadist feels when he or she foolishly believes that they’re being righteously called upon to fight for the creation of an Islamic state, as if that might fix what are largely personal troubles.
  • (16) A muted reaction works better than the self-righteous explosion they are sometimes hankering after.
  • (17) Typical of the PC brigade - one Iraqi man gets beaten to death and they are down on you like a ton of righteous liberal bricks!
  • (18) In its proper context – of a US puffed up with righteousness and seized by Islamophobia – I think Homeland is a revolutionary piece of work, merely by having the courage to tell a story from the perspective of two characters who are questioning whether US policy in the Middle East is right.
  • (19) Thanks to recent appearances on Question Time and Newsnight , it is popular – righteous, even – to loathe David Starkey.
  • (20) It was a bad business but not as bad as the self-righteous Carswell or the tax-shy Tory press made it sound at the time.

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.