"Virtual" used to mean something like "exactly" but now it means something like this . Essential Meaning of  virtual 1 :  very close to being something without actually being it The country is ruled by a virtual dictator. [=by someone who is not officially a dictator but who is like a dictator in every important way] Her victory is a virtual certainty. [=she almost certainly will win] The species is nearing virtual extinction. [=it is almost extinct] 2 :  existing or occurring on computers or on the Internet a virtual library virtual shopping Creeping into the science of computer systems, "virtual" became a powerful concept as early as the late 1960s. Programs were assigned "virtual memory" that "looked" like real memory but could be moved around or swapped out to disk according to the needs of the operating system. The idea grew from there, underpinning the architecture of "mainframe" computers and when I last worked fo...