on the alert, wakeful, wide-awake.

_Vigilant_ implies more sustained activity and more intelligent volition
than _alert_; one may be habitually _alert_ by reason of native
quickness of perception and thought, or one may be momentarily _alert_
under some excitement or expectancy; one who is _vigilant_ is so with
thoughtful purpose. One is _vigilant_ against danger or harm; he may be
_alert_ or _watchful_ for good as well as against evil; he is _wary_ in
view of suspected stratagem, trickery, or treachery. A person may be
_wakeful_ because of some merely physical excitement or excitability, as
through insomnia; yet he may be utterly careless and negligent in his
wakefulness, the reverse of _watchful_; a person who is truly _watchful_
must keep himself _wakeful_ while on watch, in which case _wakeful_ has
something of mental quality. _Watchful_, from the Saxon, and _vigilant_,
from the Latin, are almost exact equivalents; but _vigilant_ has
somewhat more of sharp definiteness and somewhat more suggestion of
volition; one may be habitually _watchful_; one is _vigilant_ of set
purpose and for direct cause, as in the presence of an enemy. Compare
ALERT.

Antonyms:

careless, heedless, inconsiderate, oblivious,
drowsy, inattentive, neglectful, thoughtless,
dull, incautious, negligent, unwary.

* * * * *

VIRTUE.

Synonyms:

chastity, honesty, probity, truth,
duty, honor, purity, uprightness,
excellence, integrity, rectitude, virtuousness,
faithfulness, justice, righteousness, worth,
goodness, morality, rightness, worthiness.

_Virtue_ (L. _virtus_, primarily manly strength or courage, from _vir_,
a man, a hero) is, in its full sense, _goodness_ that is victorious
through trial, perhaps through temptation and conflict. _Goodness_, the
being morally good, may be much less than _virtue_, as lacking the
strength that comes from trial and conflict, or it may be very much more
than _virtue_, as rising sublimely above the possibility of temptation
and conflict--the infantile as contrasted with the divine _goodness_.
_Virtue_ is distinctively human; we do not predicate it of God.
_Morality_ is conformity to the moral law in action, whether in matters
concerning ourselves or others, whether with or without right principle.
_Honesty_ and _probity_ are used especially of one's relation