Originally "virtual" comes from Latin virtus, which can be translated like "force", "ability", "fact".
Why nowadays in many languages word derived from "virtual" mean something exactly opposite - something that cannot be touched.
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Sign up to join this communityOriginally "virtual" comes from Latin virtus, which can be translated like "force", "ability", "fact".
Why nowadays in many languages word derived from "virtual" mean something exactly opposite - something that cannot be touched.
There's a whole class of words, called Antagonyms (Auto-antonyms, Contranyms). By definition, words that are antonyms to themselves.
There's a brief list of such words in English; Wikipedia also has a decent list of those.
As of "virtual", Etymonline article says:
The meaning "being something in essence or effect, though not actually or in fact" is from mid-15c., probably via sense of "capable of producing a certain effect" (early 15c.). Computer sense of "not physically existing but made to appear by software" is attested from 1959.
But it doesn't mean the opposite. A force cannot be touched, nor can an ability or a fact. A thing can; the Latin for "thing" is res, whence real.
Words like "virtual", "practical", or "effective" all mean "for all intents and purposes — but not in essence". They refer to something that, if you like, walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but isn't a duck. Which is why in spite of their denoting a positive property rather than a lack of one, they can still be contrasted with "real", "literal" and "tangible".