What is virile?

Famous quotes containing the word virile:

    Peasants are a rude lot, and hard: life has hardened their hearts, but they are thick and awkward only in appearance; you have to know them. No one is more sensitive to what gives man the right to call himself a man: good-heartedness, bravery and virile brotherhood.
    Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)

    I shall go among red faces and virile voices,
    See stylish sheep, with fine heads and well-wooled,
    And great bulls mellow to the touch,
    Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)