Make a virtue of necessity

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Meaning

Turn an unavoidable or unwelcome situation to advantage, or accept it with good grace. Can mean either gaining an advantage from constraint or presenting unavoidable action positively. Regional use: Middle English literary expression with Latin and French antecedents; now widespread.

Origin

Latin facere de necessitate virtutem, used by Jerome, and Old French faire de necessite vertu predate English. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, composed about 1382-1386, already has make virtue of necessity; the Knight's and Squire's Tales repeat the expression later in the fourteenth century. Chaucer therefore supplies the earliest recorded English witnesses, not the underlying idea. In present use the phrase can mean finding a real benefit in circumstances one cannot change, not merely disguising compulsion as moral choice.

Research Sources

  1. Harvard Chaucer: The Squire's Introduction and Tale Harvard University
  2. Phrase Finder: Make a virtue of necessity Phrase Finder
  3. Cambridge Dictionary: make a virtue out of something Cambridge University Press
  4. World English Historical Dictionary: virtue World English Historical Dictionary

Variants

  • Turn necessity into a virtue

Usage Examples

  • With the road closed, the village made a virtue of necessity and held a street market.
  • She made a virtue of necessity by using the delay to revise the chapter.
  • Faced with a tiny venue, the company made a virtue of necessity by staging an intimate performance.

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