Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Virtue, excellence.
  • noun Alternative spelling of arête.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek ἀρετή.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Variant of arête, which is from French.

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Examples

  • The peaks were known as arete, where two glaciers had crawled up opposite sides of a mountain and formed a jagged, narrow ridge like the blade of a serrated knife.

    The Black Madonna Davis Bunn 2010

  • The scriptures I cited above translate the word arete as "virtue.")

    Feast upon the Word Blog 2009

  • Written in the Socratic dialectic style, it attempts to determine the definition of virtue, or arete, meaning in this case virtue in general, rather than particular virtues (e.g. justice, temperance, etc.).

    Archive 2009-03-01 Jonathan Aquino 2009

  • Written in the Socratic dialectic style, it attempts to determine the definition of virtue, or arete, meaning in this case virtue in general, rather than particular virtues (e.g. justice, temperance, etc.).

    Capsule Summaries of the Great Books of the Western World Jonathan Aquino 2009

  • Written in the Socratic dialectic style, it attempts to determine the definition of virtue, or arete, meaning in this case virtue in general, rather than particular virtues (e.g. justice, temperance, etc.)..

    Jon Aquino's Mental Garden 2009

  • Only four walls today, but considering that I was feeling tired and sore and staying off the overhangs, and the walls were an 5.9 - (which I have done before), a 5. 9+ (which I did some time ago but could not duplicate today -- it's the one with the swingy barn door of an arete), a new 5.9, and a 5.8, I feel pretty good about myself.

    changing guns for brooms the guards change to clean up crews matociquala 2009

  • I kind of feel pretty good about all this, as I have more or less graduated from the bunny walls now (finally). * g* After that, my arms were shot, and I tried a 5.9 that's all balance and didn't even have the strength to pull myself up on the arete, though I tried a bunch.

    if you don't like my peaches, baby, why you wanna shake my tree? matociquala 2009

  • I was particularly pleased with myself for figuring out one move on the 5.9, which involved standing up, going big, and letting myself fall sideways onto a side-pull to get opposition on the arete.

    changing guns for brooms the guards change to clean up crews matociquala 2009

  • Some of it was that I was tired from the earlier route, and some of it was that they put a hold for another route on the damned arete right where my hand goes.

    sha la la la la la la la casacorona 2008

  • The ancient Greeks called it arete, and it meant being the best you can be.

    You’re Better Than Your Job Search Marc Cenedella 2010

  • The ethics of ancient Greece as debat­ed by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, cen­tered around the con­cept of arete, moral virtue or excel­lence con­nect­ed with ful­fill­ment of pur­pose or func­tion.

    Freedom From Consequences - Adriana Lukas | Open Transcripts 2020

Comments

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  • Arete need not be ethical; indeed it need not even be a trait of a person. It is a trait of anything, whatever that thing is, that makes it good at doing what that sort of thing characteristically does. Thus Plato can speak of the arete of a pruning knife.

    From http://www.utilitarian.net/jsmill/about/20040322.htm

    October 25, 2010

  • Usually translated "virtue", pronounced with three syllables.

    October 25, 2010

  • arete is the quality that makes something fit for its purpose. The arete of a soldier is his bravery; the arete of a knife is its sharpness. Although commonly translated as "virtue", virtue has an inaccurate moralistic connotation--"excellence" would be a better, yet still insufficient, translation.

    March 16, 2011