▪ I. virgate, n. Hist.
(ˈvɜːgət)
[ad. med.L. virgāta (sc. terræ), f. L. virga rod, used as a rendering of OE. ᵹięrd-land yard-land.]
1. An early English land-measure, varying greatly in extent, but in many cases averaging thirty acres.
| 1655 Fuller Ch. Hist. vi. 337 Indeed, it is beneath a Prince..to stoop to each Virgate and rod of ground. 1661 Blount Glossogr. (ed. 2), Virgate of Land, See Yard-land. 1688 R. Holme Armoury iii. 137/2 Virge, or Virgate of land is 20, in some places 24 Acres, or in some 30 Acres. 1710 Hearne P. Langtoft's Chron. (1810) II. 600 The town, according to Domesday Book, consisted of VIII. virgats of Land. Ibid., Each virgat comprehending fourty acres. 1747 Carte Hist. Eng. I. 436 The survey was made by..carucates, virgates and acres. 1781 Warton Hist. Kiddington (1783) 45, I have discovered that lady Elisabeth Montacute..possessed one virgate, about the year 1330. 1840 Penny Cycl. XVI. 173/2 Reckoning four virgates in each hide and thirty acres to make a virgate. 1868 Freeman Norm. Conq. II. App. 548 In Sussex we find a virgate of land at Apredoc which Harold [etc.]. 1895 Pollock & Maitland Eng. Law I. 347 The hide is generally regarded as made up of four, but it may well be of six virgates. |
2. As a linear measure: A rod or pole.
| 1772 Shrubsole & Denne Rochester 42 The first land pier..shall be built..by the bishop of Rochester; to plank three virgates or Yards, and to lay three sullivas or large beams on the bridge. 1809 Bawdwen Domesday Bk. 152 Wood pasture three quarentens long, and one quarenten and one virgate broad. |
▪ II. virgate, a. Bot. and Zool.
(ˈvɜːgət)
[ad. L. virgātus, f. virga rod.]
1. Rod-like; long, slender, and straight.
| 1821 W. P. C. Barton Flora N. Amer. I. 17 Branches virgate, elongated, one-flowered. 1832 Lindley Introd. Bot. 47 From this kind of branch [sc. vimen], that called a virgate stem, caulis virgatus, differs only in being..more rigid. 1846 Dana Zooph. (1848) 652 Branchlets..long before branching, and virgate. |
2. ‘Twiggy; producing many weak branchlets or twigs’ (Treas. Bot., 1866).