Virago
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Look up virago in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
A virago was a strong, brave, or warlike woman (from Latin "vir", "a man"), compare Tomboy; the term was later used to refer to a noisy, bossy, and scolding woman. It is closely related to termagant, which is a quarrelsome, scolding woman and shrew, which is a nagging woman.
The two meanings have led to the word's use as names for:
- Virago Press, a British press publishing women's literature.
- Yamaha Virago is a series of motorcycles.
- Virago is also the name of a spaceship in the Star Wars series of films.
[edit] Bibliography
- Ernst Breisach, Caterina Sforza ; A Renaissance virago, Chicago [usw.]: University Press 1967
- Elizabeth D. Carney,"Olympias and the Image of the Virago" in: Phoenix, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Spring, 1993), pp. 29-55
- Yenna Wu, The Chinese virago : a literary theme, Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.] : Harvard Univ. Press, 1995
