"cardinal virtue" meaning in English

See cardinal virtue in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: cardinal virtues [plural]
Etymology: From Latin cardinālis (“pertaining to a hinge (hence applied to that on which something turns or depends), important, principal, chief”). Etymology templates: {{der|en|la|cardinālis||pertaining to a hinge (hence applied to that on which something turns or depends), important, principal, chief}} Latin cardinālis (“pertaining to a hinge (hence applied to that on which something turns or depends), important, principal, chief”) Head templates: {{en-noun}} cardinal virtue (plural cardinal virtues)
  1. (ethics, Christianity, often in the plural) One of the four foundational virtues identified by Greek and Christian philosophers, on which other virtues depend: justice, temperance, prudence, or fortitude. Tags: in-plural, often Related terms: four virtues, heavenly virtues [uncommon] [Catholicism, Christianity] Coordinate_terms: minor virtue Translations (one of the four foundational virtues): اَلْفَضَائِل اَلرَّئِيسِيَّة (al-faḍāʔil ar-raʔīsiyya) [feminine, plural] (Arabic), kardinaalihyve (Finnish), vertu cardinale [feminine] (French), Kardinaltugend [feminine] (German), suáilcí cairdinéalta [feminine, plural] (Irish), suáilcí bhunúsacha [feminine, plural] (Irish), virtù cardinale [feminine] (Italian), cnota kardynalna [feminine] (Polish)

Inflected forms

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-02-14 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-02-01 using wiktextract (f492ef9 and 59dc20b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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