We might refer to a gifted violinist, for instance, as a virtuoso. First recorded in English in the early 1600s with a now-obsolete sense of "learned person," virtuoso is borrowed from Italian virtuoso "a person with exceptional skill in the arts or sciences," in Italian used especially of musicians by the latter part of the 1500s. Italian virtuoso is a noun form of the adjective virtuoso "skilled, virtuous." English virtuous (via Anglo-French) and virtuoso are indeed related. Both ultimately derive from Late Latin virtuōsus, which joins the Latin adjective-forming suffix -ōsus "full of" with Latin virtūs (inflectional stem virtūt-). Latin virtūs means "manliness, strength, courage." Apparently due to associations with honor and bravery (as of soldiers), the meaning of Latin virtūs was extended to "moral excellence," hence English virtue. The root of virtūs is vir "man," which yields virile "manly" and virago, which evolved from "heroic woman, female warrior" to the unsavory "scolding woman, shrew." The Proto-Indo-European root wi-ro-, the source of Latin vir, resulted in Old English wer "man," which survives in werewolf, literally "man-wolf," a virtuosic vocalist, perhaps, in its own howling way.
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