> yes, but that is the plural of vir (=man), whereas virus is of neuter gender, and therefore has the plural vira, see
http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/WORDS.EXE?vira
I must respectfully disagree. Regardless of what this on-line dictionary says, virus is by Latin definition a masculine noun, unless Rosa Parva (Rose Little, my esteemed latin teacher) was WAY wrong. Words in the nominative case that end in -um are neuter, those that end in -a are feminine in construction. But they are not necessarily neuter or feminine in reality. Agricola is the word for farmer, and it is most definitely feminine in construction. Nauta, sailor, is another one I remember. I am sure there are other words like vir and virus that could have similar spellings in some of their cases and I am sure the Romans had no trouble determining from context the difference between several men and several poisons (notwithstanding what some modern-day ultra-femininists might believe).
Now this brings up one of my favorite topics of conversation about language and one of my pet peeves as well. I took two years of Latin in high school, mainly because my parents thought French would be better for me (GRIN). I contend that these two years of Latin were the most important overall in my education, giving me good basics in sentence construction as well as in the art of vocabulary.
My pet peeve is that it is impossible to find Latin being taught at the high school level.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
