The word virile has appeared in 42 New York Times articles in the past year, including on June 12 in the dance review "Playing Dead, With Aplomb" by Brian Seibert:
- ENGLEWOOD, Colo. - As the Denver Broncos ran out the clock in their win over the San Diego Chargers last weekend, football fans gasped as Peyton Manning, the undisputed face of the N.F.L., got up limping after being tackled around his legs.
- In any production of "Romeo and Juliet" there is a lot of playing dead. At the Metropolitan Opera House on Monday, when American Ballet Theater performed its first "Romeo" of the season, one of the unmoving corpses near Juliet in the crypt was played by a guest star: Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a New York Democrat. She was perfect. That doesn't quite count as news, but it was noteworthy in a performance of predictable excellence. Kenneth MacMillan's 1965 "Romeo" is a reliable construction, and Monday's cast looked comfortable in roles played many times before.
- Marcelo Gomes's Romeo may be star-crossed, but he otherwise seemed blessed by fate: handsome, virile, gallant, good-natured. He was playful with the town harlots, and kind to them, too. With his buddies he was one of the guys, not above their sophomoric pranks and their sporting attitude toward death, even after he had met Juliet.