Meanings
comparative more viripotent · superlative most viripotent
- obsoleteAble to sire children; sexually mature.
He would not suffer his sonne to marrie hir, being not of ripe yeares nor viripotent or mariable.
1577, Holinshed, Henry II2 more examples
Mesmer attributed all the phenomena of animal magnetism to the efflux and the influx of a subtle fluid conceived of as specifically localised in the magnet, but radiating also from stars and planets, sun and moon, the earth and the sky, and most effectively of all from the bodies of healthy and viripotent men.
1858, Samuel Brown, Lectures on the atomic theory and essays scientific and literaryIt has only been done in times past to supply a peculiar class of servants devoted to the care of the women of viripotent men — or, as in the middle ages, to supply alto voices for the religious services in the Roman Church.
1872, The Truth about Love - Lusty; virile; full of life and sexual energy.
All now spent which should have seeded viripotent May.
1955, Shenandoah, volumes 7-8, page 555 more examples
Of giving potions to make people love or hate as they please, making the strength of youth impotent, and dead bodies viripotent.
1822, William Johnson Fox, WitchcraftHave you, aged, settled into lesser lights, or have you retained all your viripotent powers?
1964, Gertrude Jobes, James Jobes, Outer space, page 384Through their fiction all these writers proclaim the sexual emancipation of women. Their heroines, albeit to a lesser extent than the viripotent Lea of La Bicyclette bleue, experience sexuality as enabling.
1988, Judith Graves Miller, Françoise Sagan, page 124In recent centuries, the austere Jewish sexual code has fallen on hard times in Christendom, because it cuts athwart the passionate desire of the viripotent human male, especially when young but past adolescence,
1995, Lyon Sprague De Camp, The Ape-man Within, page 121"Seventh Heaven" Kathmandu Temple Kiff (tm); a viripotent cannabis alternative for blissful regressions of vexatious depressions.
2004, Jonathan Land, The Spam Letters, page 23
Origin
- Latinvir“man”
- Englishviripotent
From Latin vir (“man”) + potens (“fit for”).
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
viripotent. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/viripotent
“viripotent.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/viripotent. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “viripotent,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/viripotent.
Source: viripotent on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.